Trick or Treat
by Albion19
Summary: They make a deal of convenience together. WARNING: Very AU, set in the 1850's. T for now but will rise to M in later chapters. Gabriel/Eden.
1. Chapter 1

Note: Again very AU. This is a long fic series so I will update if people are interested for more. Enjoy!

* * *

It was Halloween Eve and the wives of the village had tried to kill the woman living on it's edge. She was a witch they said, bewitching innocent people that came across her small house with her silver tongue. And she was a whore, but that was kept hushed up, only spoken about in scandalised whispers amongst the housewives. And then the rumour started, that she was expecting. They had watched her with rising disgust and anger as she glowed with the prospect of birth. The father could have been anyone, even one of their husbands. She had bewitched all the men, turned them off of their wives. The wives knew that their husbands visited her. And then they started to leave, one by one. The devil woman was a harlot and needed to be shown.

They had stuffed her mouth with cloth sack and dragged her out of her home. It was the first time that many of them had seen her and were shocked to see not a voluptuous, erotic beauty from overseas but a tiny, rail thin girl, lily white in the dusk. Pixie instead of a Succubus. They pushed her to the ground and punched and kicked at her frail body. She didn't last long, so growing tired of her easy defeat they left her in the undergrowth.

Gabriel Gray had heard of her of course. Had even seen her once when he needed to go into the city for clock parts. She had been hanging up clothes, all neatly on a line. So when he found her laying in front of his path home he recognised her immediately. She was hurt, bleeding and clothing ripped, curled up on the crushed grass. He gingerly knelt down, not wanting to touch her for fear of something he couldn't name.

"I can't just leave you here. I can help."

So saying that he picked her gently up into his arms and carried her back to her cottage.

*

Eden felt like her limbs were at once very heavy and needle sharp with pain. Her head was foggy, pulsing cotton, clotted together like webs over her mind. She remembered hearing shouting and a large crowd. And then pain. Thankfully she had blacked out afterwards. She ran her dry tongue along her teeth, to see if any had been loosened for there was a taste of copper there. She winced and opened her eyes when she tasted blood. There was a man standing at the end of her bed, tall but slightly hunched over. Her body spasmed in shock and she gasped aloud in pain.

"Don't move. You might have broken something." His soft voice was soothing to her ringing ears and she relaxed. One of her eyes felt swollen but she opened them again to watch him. He hedged closer, eyes bespectacled and soft with worry. Everything about him very neat and clean. Well put together. He had his handkerchief out and handed it to her. "You nose is bleeding."

She took the snow white cloth and cupped it to her face. "Who are you?"

"I'm Gabriel Gray. I make timepieces."

Ah yes, she'd heard of him. A recluse, like her. People found him an oddity, nice enough but too unsociable. He didn't speak to people so they didn't speak back to him. He was rather handsome, she thought, as he smiled shyly at her. She nodded.

"Thank you for bringing me home, I could have been out there all night." She sighed wearily and looked around her bedroom. It was small and joined onto the only other room in which the kitchen and front room were occupied. She looked around sadly, pulling her bed sheet up in her hands. "It looks like I won't be here for long. The women in the village hate me. Well, I was never really welcomed here…"

Gabriel blinked and cleared his throat, looking relieved. "That's good." Eden raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh, I mean good that it wasn't anything more…serious?" His checks reddened and he looked down.

"Oh, you thought the men…?" She shock her head. "No, they worship me." She laughed but had to stop at the pain in her chest. His head had raised, eyes alight with interest. He seemed to hesitate before knelling down by her bed.

" You are -"

"A witch?""No. A God send."

Eden frowned at him. Then her lips quirked. "That is an odd thing to say. I don't think I've ever been called that before."

"The stories that they tell of you, of the things you can do. It's just wonderful." He was excited, mouth parted. "Like last year. Did you really make the landlord of The Rock give out free ale?"

He looked so animated that she felt herself swayed. No one had looked at her like that. Only anger, fear or lust was directed her way. "He overcharged me. He was a curmudgeon and greedy. I was doing the punters a service."

His face broke out into a wide grin and she felt herself reflect it back at him. "It's magic, what you do! You don't know how lucky and unique you are! People would kill for what you have."

"It's not all good…" She pulled the sheet around her breasts.

"Sorry, I didn't mean…"

"If you are so pleased about my power why haven't you been to see me before?"

"I -" he paused, licking his lips. "I thought about it but I wasn't sure. About what the women say…"

"That I am a whore? They can think what they like…Didn't you ever wonder?"

"No. Yes. I mean no." He grew uncomfortable, pulling out his pocket watch and playing with it as he spoke. "I don't care about what you do and don't do with men. I have no interest in it at all."

She stared at him with interest. He had to be in his late twenties and not yet married. From what she had been told he had never been in a relationship with anyone. He had lived with his mother until last year, when his father had died. She thought he was the type of man that would be desperate enough to see her. She took his hand.

"It's alright. I don't want to make you uncomfortable after what you have done for me. Before I leave there must be a way I can pay you back for your kindness?" Many men came to see her, and some women too, and they were thankful for her help. But she would always go to bed alone and wake that way. The silence could be crushing.

He looked down at their hands, thumb brushing gently over the scratches marking her skin. He didn't speak but his grip got tighter. Finally he looked up.

"You're offering me what I want?" His voice shook slightly.

"If I can give it."

"And what would you want in return?"

Eden needed food, clothes and other necessities to keep her place here. She did her trick and they would give her payment for it. Before this power had been given to her she had resorted to another method to stay alive. But that was years ago.

"Money. If I am to leave I will need it to travel." Every time she thought about leaving her face became downcast. "But more I want to go out into the village without the dirty glances. I need to be respected, honourably. I'm tired of moving and I thought this would finally be the place I could settle."

"You don't have to leave." He said gently.

She smiled "No one wants me here anymore. My reputation, what I had of it, is decimated." She sighed, biting her lip. "I went overboard…sometimes I let it take me over till I can't see what I'm doing is wrong. I just wanted to hurt them, pay them back for all the years worth of muck they had thrown at me. Their husbands wanted to leave, I just gave them a push."

"But you have lived here for years. A lady like yourself can't travel by herself." He looked rather scandalised she thought.

Her eyes sharpened on him. "You believe what they say? About the baby? Malicious rumours spread to ruin me." Her eyes clouded over with nostalgia. "Oh but before I came here I did things that would make your hair white and your face burn."

His mouth thinned but the excitement was still palpable. "What kind of things?"

Eden kept silent, her own face going red. She couldn't tell him, he gave off waves of Christian virtue, prudish reserve. Like his mother. "Just safe to say it was things that someone like you would find…distasteful."

He straightened up, affronted. "You don't know that. I'm not a child."

She raised an eyebrow. "You were living with your mother until recently. I have never seen you in the company of any young women for more then a few minutes…Well with anyone for that amount of time."

He stood up and walked to her bureau, taking her hair brushes and trinkets and placing them neatly in a line. Eden sat up carefully and stood up, hand placed to her mid section. She reached his side, hand brushing his arm.

"I could make you not fear people, make you want to be with them. I could give you anyone that you wanted. Haven't you ever wanted a wife?"

His chest was swelling, breath caught in his throat before it was released in a rush. He turned quickly to her, hands cupping her shoulders. "Can you do that? Can you make them see me?"

Eden was taken aback by his expression. Gone was the shy awkwardness and in it's place was a desperate lustful hope. The transformation made her hair stand on end and her stomach flip over. The magnetism was raw and it made her want to be under the full force of it. Then she tried to step back but his fingers held her in place.

"You want it that much?"

"I'd give you my business for it." He was deathly serious. "Whatever you want I'll give it if you do this."

Eden needed to sit down. She wiggled out of his hold and sat down on her bed. She was being reckless and not thinking. Again. But he would give her what she wanted. What did she want?

"Gabriel I don't want to go but I can't stay here doing this all the time. It's so easy for me to do it, to tell others what I want them to believe. I don't do good things for people."

He knelt down again, earnestly watching her from between her knees. That hungry look had been subdued. "You would be helping me. You would not be doing a bad thing, I don't want to hurt people. I just want to be someone significant. Please don't withhold this from me."

And then an idea grew in her mind, half formed and haphazard. It was ridiculous but maybe, maybe…She placed her palm to his soft cheek and leaned forward, eyes intense on his. "I will make a deal with you. This will be my last trick and if I perform it for you then you must do this for me. I want to stay here but I can't be alone, not with this reputation hanging over me. I can't live with it anymore." His eyes were captivated to hers. "I want to stay with you. I want you to pretend to court me."

His mouth slackened and he gulped. "You mean…marriage?" He laughed nervously.

"I'm not a fool or some green girl. We won't have to share a bed or even touch each other when not in the company of others. This is if you agree of course. I'll give you a few days to come to a decision and give me your answer. If you don't come by the end of the week then I'll know your mind and you'll never see me again. You'll remain unnoticed."

Gabriel eyes flickered between hers, as if looking for any traces of deceit. "It's mad." He whispered. "But, but I'll think on it…I don't even know you! You don't know me!" He shook his head.

"We can get to know each other! It will not be a difficult situation, we could go hours a day without seeing each other if that is what you wanted. It would be matter of convenience for both of us. I will give you the reputation you crave and that will heighten mine by being associated with you." She stopped, thinking she was coming across as too cold. "But I -" She paused, uncertain. "I'm lonely. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone and moving from one place to another." Her fingers traced the curve of his mouth. "It wouldn't be all pretence, I could come to feel…"

"Eden…" He took both of her hands in his. They were huge compared to hers but years of working with delicate watch parts had trained them to be gentle with small things. "If you grant me what I want I could even fool my mother into believing we are in love."

He stood up, moving to the door. Eden followed him out. He put on his dust coat and she brushed out the crinkles. "So it's a deal then?"

"If you do your trick for me I'll do the treat for you. "

She smiled. "In the spirit of the season?"

"Yes."

He left her in her blood and grass stained chemise and walked down her garden path and out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

Her bed had been made, her breakfast eaten and Eden sat at her kitchen table, fingers brushing away imaginary crumbs. Then after seeming hours of sitting still she was hit with a volt and needed to move. Nervous energy pushed and pulled her around her house as she tugged her big suitcase out from under her bed and threw her clothes into it.

"Absolutely ridiculous…what was I thinking?" She mumbled to herself as she pulled on her travelling coat and slung a bag filled with food over her shoulder, the suitcase weighing down her hand. The morning was cold and crisp and it stung her eyes as she closed her gate behind her and prepared to walk to the station.

Eden wasn't psychic but she believed that everyone had a sixth sense, especially children. She stopped, hair rising on her nape and her stomach fizzing. Of course he would be here, it was what she was fearing most.

"Miss McCain…you've packed already? You can't actually live with me yet."

She could just ignore him and keep on walking. Her father was out there somewhere. And really, she didn't have anything to hinder her leaving. Not really. There was a rustle of paper behind her.

"You- you are staying, aren't you? Because you said yesterday -"

She released a huffy breath and dropped her heavy case, turning to him. She had to stop herself from laughing. Flowers, freshly picked, in his hand. In his other a paper package.

"Where are you going?" His eyes narrowed and his brows lowed in distress.

"I can't stay here. Look, I think I must have taken a violent blow to the head yesterday and it's addled my brain." Her shoulder length hair had been pulled viciously and her scalp was still pulsing with an ache. "It was a silly thing for me to say. I'm sorry. If that is for me then you might as well take it back. Thank you Mr Gray, I mean that sincerely." She picked up the suitcase again.

The bunch that had been held out frozen to her swung down as he walked up to her. They fell to the ground as he took the bag from her and pulled. Then he hid it behind him, out of reach from her stretching arm.

"Now, don't be stupid. Give it back." The package fell to the ground as his hand gripped her shoulder and kept her back. "Mr - Gabriel!"

"Please! If you're worried that I won't be good to you, I will. Is that why you want to leave?" His eyes were shinning and glossy with hurt and Eden felt her stomach twist with guilt. She stopped struggling and his hand loosened.

"All that happened yesterday was madness. I don't even know what you want me to do for you. Before yesterday we never said two words together and now we are talking about possibly living together! I don't know what I was thinking…"

He stared at her for a long time before speaking, possibly thinking of what to say. The fresh air made her cheeks burn. "Ok, I think we do need to talk this through. Yesterday was very rushed. Please come with me and we can sit down and talk this through thoroughly?" Her face flickered with uncertainty, her head beginning to shake. He stepped closer to her, hand firm on her shoulder, fingers digging in through the thick material. "Please Eden? Don't show me this wonderful thing and then snatch it away from me. I know when you say it out loud it sounds crazy but it won't be. I'll take care of you, if that's what you want? Like you said, we will both benefit from the arrangement."

She looked behind her, the path dipping down and out of sight into the tress, obscured with mist. She turned to him, a slight nod signalling her consent. He exhaled in relief and picked up her suitcase, fingers tugging on her sleeve to follow him. The flowers were left unnoticed by him as the walked away but Eden looked back at them with an ominous feeling.

*

At the first glance at his Clock Shop you think it would be too small to live in, his living quarters taking up the upper story of the building. And you would be right. But the house attached to it gave the property a larger feel. He unlocked the door to the dark shop and stepped aside to let her in. It was a moody place, quiet and the air very still, at odds with the ticking vibrating through the air. Not a speck of dust lay or floated anywhere.

"So your mother lives in the house next door?"

"Yes. There's a door connecting the two kitchens at the back. We share a garden too."

"Didn't move very far did you?"

They were standing by the counter, Eden's hip leaning against it as he stood poker straight. He was incredibly tall she realised. At least to her.

"Well I work here, so living above was the best option. It used to hold storage. Junk mainly."

Eden had heard a different tale. That his mother was so distraught that he thought about not only moving out but moving away completely that she had worked herself into an illness. Gabriel had relented immediately and moved next door.

"So the kitchen is at the back and the other rooms are upstairs?"

"Yes."

"Just one bedroom?"

"He-hum." He cleared his throat and cocked his head to follow him as he walked to the kitchen. It made her feel ashamed when she looked at it and thought of her own. It was beautifully clean, the surfaces gleaming.

"You're very orderly." He smiled, pleased_. "House trained already_," she whispered under her breath.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing."

He frowned with the smile still on his face and pulled a chair out for her, saying her name formally again. Eden chastised him to call her by her Christian name and he relented with a shy smile. She sat as he took one opposite her and there was a long silence as both waited for the other to speak.

"Well -"

"Ok -"

Eden laughed as he smiled, embarrassed. She nodded for him to continue.

"…Ok. I'd like to know what it is you actually do? I don't believe you're a witch or worship the devil -"

"Well that's good because I don't."

"Right. So you can't just cast a spell on someone and they do what you want?"

Eden opened her mouth then closed it. It had been a long time since she had talked to someone about her gift. "It's not a spell. I don't make potions or anything like that. I use my voice. I speak and…draw on this thing that is in me and whatever I tell them to do, they do it."

"You can make them believe what you want? Change their minds? Sway them?"

"Yes."

He sat back in his chair, looking impressed. His eyes shinned at her. "That is amazing! All the things that you could do! All the things that you could _make_ people do!"

"And that is what you want?"

He sat forward, face growing serious. "Yes. As you can see I run this place and it was doing well. I make timepieces or fix them and send them to bigger places. I'm well received by specialist buyers but -" He stopped, face clouding over. "But after my father died I lost customers. I went for a loan and was turned down." He talked as if it was just some bothersome duty. Then that hungry look surfaced. "But I know I can achieve more. This place is adequate for now but I want more."

"To be special?"

"All my life."

Eden leaned closer to him, finger tracing around his that were splayed on the table. "I could do that for you. I could convince them to buy more of your products. I could make them respect and idolise you."

His breathing grew laboured with excitement. "There's one person I need you to sway, for now. There's a loan company in New York that is interested in my business, in expanding it. I need the money but it all depends on his view of me. I need you to make him think I'm worth the risk. That I'm perfect."

"What makes you think they won't hire you?"

"Why would they?" His face become dejected. "I don't think I made a good impression on him. Impressions are everything. The last time I went there he forgot who I was, after we had met before. I'm forgettable. I was ready to give up but then you came along. Please Eden?"

This was more then some person wishing her make his life a little easier. His eyes were filled with a desperate hopefulness. But there was an edge there, something jittery and fragile, that he was treading on. If she said no it would do more then disappoint him. He took her hands and brought them to his chin, holding them together.

"This will be good for you too. I know I'm not very handsome or have much experience with women but I'll treat you right. You said you wanted to be with me, that I can give you what you want. I will, I promise."

"You would go as far as to take me for a wife?"

He nods. "It's a win-win situation. You will share in the glory. In my reputation. I want everyone to see that I'm worth something…" His expression became still and his eyes looked into the middle distance. The dreamy look passed as he saw her. "If it means that you can get me noticed then I'd marry you now."

Eden felt a sting of reproach. "And that's it?" She took her hands away from him.

"Well, what else is there at this point?"

"It seems cold."

He stared at her, unblinking. He did that a lot she noticed. Maybe looking at the innards of watches for so long. Then his face became soft and his eyes warmed, looking sherry coloured in the early morning light. "It's just the beginning. There's no point rushing it. Just know that you'll always feel welcome here by me and you'll never have to worry about getting hurt. I - I do want someone here, to have someone to talk to. But I think we should take it one day at a time."

She smiled weakly, then it grew stronger. "You're right. The affection might grow." He nodded in agreement, standing up as she did. "This is a serious thing. It will change our lives. If you say that you'll give me protection then that is payment enough."

The joyful relief was overwhelming. Almost embarrassing in it's excess. Eden saw the lumpy package on the table and pointed to it.

"Was that for me?"

He raised his heavy eyebrows and turned. "Oh, yes it is." He picked it up gently and handed it to her, face going beet red. She unstrung the cord tying it together and a light, white chemise was revealed. He'd brought her underwear. She looked at him and giggled.

"You actually brought this? From here?"

"Of course. The one you wore yesterday was soiled. Bloody."

"I can imagine the glances you must have got. They'll be talking about you now, wondering who it's for. All that tittle-tattle…" The mortified look told her he thought as much. His face became even more solemn as he took in her face. "You're black and blue."

It had been of a shock to her when she had looked in her mirror that morning. She looked a fright. "I look like a bruised apple but it looks worse then it feels. If I don't speak to much anyway." He still stared, sympathy written over his face. She stood looking up at him and feeling impulsive reached up and kissed his cheek. He drew in a quick breath and stepped back with a polite smile. She was left untouched.


	3. Chapter 3

Virginia Gray was a patient woman. She didn't ask for much and thanked the Lord for what she had been given. And Gabriel was what she was thankful most for. Her son was a beautiful, gracious person but so fragile, so uncertain of himself. But his mother knew that he was one of the Great Ones. Her whole life she knew that the Lord sent these special people down to earth and she had been gifted with one. From the day of his birth she had strived through obstacles to give him the best life she could. But sometimes those obstructions could be too dense to get through, especially if you were married to one.

Virginia pulled up weeds growing around her husband grave stone and placed them in a basket hanging off her arm, to be used for compost. She stood up with a grimace, fingers messaging the knot in her back. As she did voices reached her ear from behind her.

"Yes! The French chemise he got, the most expensive one we had. Oh but his face went up like a furnace!" Titters like the chatter of birds flittered through the air and Virginia walked towards them with interest, unnoticed. "I've never even seen him with a lady friend before, none of us have. Ooh, I do wonder who that boy was buying it for. Gabriel Gray buying women's undergarments!"

Virginia stood still in surprise. Her boy? Women's underwear? The confusion started to pass as her eyes gleamed with hope. Her Gabriel had finally found himself someone! She had tried and tried of course. There were very pretty girls in the village, some his age even, but he would turn her efforts down before even trying. Buying things like that for women did not hint at something fleeting. Her boy was in deep. Virginia turned with a grin on her face, humming as she made her way back home, thinking what girl it could be.

*

The smile that had been fixed onto her face faltered as she opened the door to the shop and saw her son standing with not one of the girls from the church, nor even one from the village. The witch girl. They were both bent over the counter, setting out his tools.

"This one I use for tightening. And this -" His eyes shot up as he heard the bell tinkle over the door and his mother stepped in. "Mom! What are you doing here?" He smiled nervously and stepped away slightly from Eden, who had been watching close by him. His mother didn't answer, just stared at Eden as if she had been painted green. Then her eyes looked at Gabriel and then back down to Eden. Then she laughed, a jittery sound. "This is Eden McCain."

"McCain. Like the first murderer."

"And like paradise." Gabriel said quickly before looking down.

"Is she here to buy something?"

"…No."

"Getting a repair?"

"No Mother."

Virginia could feel her smile flickering on her face, like a flame on a candle as her mind tried to put together what it didn't want to. She looked away from her guilty looking son to the girl next to him. But looking at her made her stomach feel like it was filled with ice so her eyes picked out the open paper package on the counter below her.

"You brought…_her_ that?!"

Gabriel went red and gawked like a fish before Eden spoke up. "Please Ms Gray, Gabriel has done nothing wrong. I owe him every kindness. I was violently attacked last night and Gabriel found me and rescued me. I was hurt and he took care of me, saved me. I might have frozen out there if he hadn't done the Christian thing and helped someone in need. He's a hero."

Virginia had been staring incredulously at Gabriel the whole time Eden had spoken but now she looked at her. That was when she noticed the deep bruising the girl had. She was just a tiny little thing and Virginia felt a flush of pity. But the swell of pride she felt crushed it as she looked at her son.

"You did that?"

"Yes." His smiled with repressed pride, face still red.

Virginia felt relief wash through her. Her boy was just being a good Samaritan. She'd raised him well. The girl smiled at her with her bruised lips and brushed her hand down Gabriel's arm, drawing his attention to her. She pressed herself against his side, breast touching his arm. She whispered something to him but she couldn't hear what. Gabriel's eyes widened in concern and he spoke fast but again low. They were arguing and Virginia was left unattended. She could barely make it out.

"I don't want to…No. Yes…do it now."

Eden patted his cheek with her hand "I'll be at home if you want me." She made to move away from him but he blocked her way out.

"Gabriel what is going on? If she wants to leave let her."

Her son threw a look of daggers at Eden for a moment then moved aside. Eden smiled cheerily at him and picked up her present, nodding polity as she passed Virginia on the way out.

Virginia and her son were left alone, the ringing of the bell in their ears the only sound. His mother moved up to the counter, face uncertain. "Just what I going on here Gabriel?" He looked at her like he'd just smashed all her prized plates. He was silent for a long time and this was usually his way of saying the conversation was over. But this needed to be explained. "Gabriel!"

"I'm courting her!"

"What?"

"I've been seeing her for months Ma."

"For months?" Virginia frowned then she gasped in shock and clasped the front of her dress in her hand. Gabriel dashed around the counter and gave her his arm for support. "Oh dear Lord I need to sit down." Gabriel pulled the visitors chair out with his leg and sat her down, knelling down as she settled.

"Oh Jesus I'm sorry. Are you ok?" He looked frantic, possibly thinking back to last the last time she had a funny turn.

"Am I alright? How can I be alright? You fathered a child on to a, a _you know what!_" Virginia covered her face with her handkerchief as her eyes began to well up.

"Wh-what do you mean?" His face had gone chalk white.

"She had been with child! Everyone knew it. They said that she lost it but she wasn't pregnant when she got here, had never moved away from here. So it must have been, been - Oh Lord!" With that she broke into sobs.

Gabriel looked at her with an appalled expression but then his face started to set. "I'm sorry Mom, I'm sorry. Please forgive me? Mother?"

She peaked up from under her hanky, sniffing. "So it was you?"

Gabriel's eyes swam like hers "Yes." He drew in a shaky breath. "Yes it was. You see? I said I would marry her but then she lost it and I can't just abandon her, it's not the honourable thing to do." His mother shook her head, looking like she had just heard of a close death. Gabriel took her hands gently, looking her in the eye with sincerity.

"It's not just that Ma. I wanted to marry her. I love her and I want her to stay with me. _She_ wants to be with me."

"But Gabriel, she's a whore."

He shook his head "I know the reputation Ma and I know her. It's not true, I swear it's not."

"She was going to have a baby, before you asked her to marry you. That is not the way a Lady behaves Gabriel." She frowned at him.

He lowed his head. "Any blame goes onto me. She -she never wanted to break the rules. We - I was…rash." His voice shook with mortification. His mother stared at him for a few moments before her eyes scrunched up and she started to cry again. Gabriel got on his feet quickly, his every move sending waves of unease through the air.

"Ooh Gabriel! The nasty words that are going to be spread about you now! Everyone in the village will know and talk!"

"They can talk, I don't care." He turned to her, face grim with a resolution. "But it won't be like that forever. I'm going back to New York and I'm going to get that loan. And then I'll be special Ma, they forget about all this when they see what I become!" He smiled reassuringly, bending down to her again.

Despite herself Virginia felt her spirits rise. "Really? That man was awful and couldn't see a good thing when it was in front of his face!" She felt a swell of pity when she remembered how dejected Gabriel had been and cupped his cheek gently. "You're too good for that place."

"I'm going back to him and he's going to take me up. Eden is coming with me."

Her eyebrows raised and she dropped her hand. "Why?"

His face grew excited "Because she's special! Remember what you used to tell me? That there are people out there that were god sent? Well she is! And she's _mine_!"

"Gabriel…" Virginia loved her son and was thankful that he found someone at last. But that girl was furthest from what she placed as being special. "That girl is not special, if she was why would she be here, living a life like that?"

He stood up, face darkening. "You could say the same thing about me."

"Oh but you're different! You're important Gabriel but the life you've had has stopped that from going anywhere. But this year is different. That girl has had a life, she's moved around and if you say she's special then she decided not to follow her god given destiny! You have just begun yours."

He nodded. "And she's going to help me start." There was a long silence as Gabriel leaned against the counter, looking out the window as his mother sat and looked at her old wedding ring, twisting it on her finger. Finally she looked up.

"If you say that she can help you in some way then that's good Gabriel. But, but just think first before you start talking about marriage? You don't have to do that Gabriel, you're not obliged to anymore."

His face grew uncertain and he looked like her little boy who used to come home from school, crying. Then he inhaled a breath and made his way to the door. "I can't argue with you about this." He drew on his coat, shrugging his shoulders. "It's going to happen. Not yet, no, but soon." With that he left her sitting alone, her face twitching whenever anyone walked passed the window.

*

Eden sat in her garden, carving out a parsnip. It was Halloween after all. She wished that she could carve out hundreds of them so that at night her house would be surrounded by candlelit ghoul smiles. She smirked to herself.

"That wasn't very nice of you."

She didn't look up, just carried on carving. "Well she's your mother, I couldn't tell her."

"Yes but I didn't want to do it like that. She's distraught. It's not good for her nerves."

"Well she knows now so there's no point moaning about it." She dug out the nose on the vegetable, flicking the pulp off her knife as she did. "You did tell her didn't you?" She looked up then, seeing him standing by her gate. Probably didn't want to get his clothes dirtied.

"I did. I told her that we were getting married and that you're coming with me to New York."

Eden stood up and walked to him, parsnip in one hand and the knife in the other. "And she believes that you want me?"

His eyes widened "I think so. She, she believes that you-" He paused to clear his throat. "You see she thinks that me and you have been seeing each other for quite awhile and- and - and shethinksIgotyoupregnant."

"Sorry?!"

Her raised his palms "She just came to that assumption and I thought it would be for the best if I said it was me. That way it wouldn't be so strange that I wanted to marry you."

"But I'm not."

"I know. I said I'd still do it because I loved you."

Eden felt angry but she didn't know why. It was a good plan but she didn't want her to think that. "She'll think I'm some strumpet, tempting you into…me"

Even his neck blushed. "You don't have to worry about that. I put the blame on me."

Eden still frowned. He moved into her garden and tugged on her sleeve. "Please don't be angry with me? You're still coming with me to New York?"

She sighed and looked down at her carving. "Yes I'm still going. Forget about that now." She smiled at him, shaking the plant at him. "Come help me do this. You'll probably do it better then me, you work with your hands after all."

His mouth drew up at the corner and he took it from her. "Pumpkins are the usual thing to use."

"Well I don't have any. Come on."

She lead him to the bench and they sat down together. Eden handed him another knife and they got to work.


	4. Chapter 4

They didn't go to New York immediately. Gabriel wanted to wait until Eden's bruises had faded, they were now a mottled purple-yellow. In the mean time Eden nettled Gabriel into going out together, in full sight of everyone. She wanted the whispers and curtain twitches to see and get used to them. But it only made their gossiping worse and Virginia was getting the brunt of it. She couldn't go to church or join the women's meetings without her neighbours shooting her furtive glances before finally asking her in hungry politeness how Gabriel was? And his friend? Virginia had smiled graciously and said they were doing fine. This was the most attention she had received since her husband had died.

Eden watched Gabriel's mother skittering around her kitchen, straightening cloths and plates repeatedly as she prepared herself and Gabriel a light lunch before they left for the station. Finally she laid out the boiled potatoes and cold meat and sat down, watching Eden for any signs of displeasure. Eden smiled encouragingly at her and cut her ham. Over the weeks Virginia had relented somewhat to Eden's presence in her son's life as they got to know each other. Eden was a good judge of character and Virginia was an easy person to read. Just give her complements, about herself, her home and especially Gabriel and she was putty in your hand. But it wasn't totally to Eden's liking. While Virginia seemed to have accepted her for the most part she seemed to view her as some unfortunate that couldn't function without assistance. Like a homeless kitten that Gabriel had rescued.

"Doesn't she eat neatly Gabriel? Little dainty hands." Virginia crinkled her nose at her and Eden smiled back, trying to smother the snide feeling she felt.

"What? Oh, yes they're small." He was eating his food fast, watching the clock on the mantel piece.

"You really do have a beautiful home Ms Gray. I only have a modest little place. I don't know how you keep it so clean by yourself." Eden watched the woman across her swell in praise. Gabriel watched her with narrowed eyes.

"Oh thank you. I can tell you it's been tough by myself, what with Gabriel not living here anymore."

"I only live over there Ma."

"Oh but it's not the same. And now you have…" She trailed off, looking at Eden with reddening cheeks.

"A fiancée? Well I'm sure when I'm living with him, when we get back, I could help you. If you needed it."

"When you get back?"

"Yes. I have no parents for him to get consent from, so he doesn't have to wait for me to move in. I live almost a mile away. There's no point traipsing back and forth when I can move in now is there?"

"Eden…" His warning was low.

"What?"

"That's not funny. You know you can't yet." He stared at her in annoyance. "She's just playing Ma." Virginia had been staring confused between them but now she laughed, relieved.

"Well that ok then!" There was tense silence as they finished their food. Finally the time arrived to leave and Virginia gave them both hugs which surprised Eden as she took her face between her hands "My son rescued you and now he's taking care of you, like he should." Her eyes swept her face. "You're so pretty. You made the most with what you had, like me." She gave each cheek a gentle pat "But that is all behind you now, isn't it?"

Eden stared at her stoic before answering "Yes, all that is behind me. Gabriel will take care of me." Virginia nodded in surety. They had already sent their luggage to the station and decided to walk their together. A small gathering were standing around outside. Eden thought she recognised a few that had beaten her. Gabriel saw her unease and took her coat sleeve, something she came to realise was his way of showing her affection. She hooked her arm through his while in sight of them until they reached the wood.

Eden had been privy to his habits, the way he would act around people. Like now he was walking with ease, while before he was uptight and walking fast. She trailed behind him, watching his back. She found it hard to believe he had never had a love, he was extremely attractive but just couldn't see it himself. Maybe he did in the past, some girl in his Sunday school class had given him his first kiss. Or more.

"Eden, you're lagging behind." He stopped and turned to her, waiting for her to catch up.

"My legs aren't as long as yours!" He smirked at her as they resumed walking, the song of birds echoing through the air as the wind whooshed through the branches above them.

"Gabriel?"

"Hmm?"

"How are we going to live together? I was messing with your mother back there but the question still stands. You only have a small bed, I saw it." It looked like it was probably his childhood bed but stretched to fit his long frame. "Where am I going to sleep?"

"You know if this works I'll get my name in the papers? Well the shop name anyway. I Could advertise in all the papers. The Times even!"

Eden gritted her teeth and nodded. She knew from her first discussion with him and afterwards that it was blindingly obvious that he was probably the most egotistical person she had ever met. But then that wasn't quite right. He was selfish but then he would act in a way that was the complete opposite to what she had come to expect. He was crushingly inept in social situations, paranoid about what others thought about him and constantly seeking approval. She found it difficult to meld together these two aspects of his personality. She was never sure how to act around him. She would give him praise and he would glow for awhile but then he would be hit with insecurities. Eden was growing tired of it and even more so of not receiving enough back.

"…Who knows, maybe the papers in America doesn't have to be the be and end all? Maybe -"

"You didn't answer my question Gabriel." She pulled her gloves on, the feel of one of her stockings coming loose adding to her agitated state. He didn't answer straight away, didn't look at her.

"I have a pallet I could sleep on."

Eden shook her head. "That won't do. I know that this is just an arrangement Gabriel, you don't need to feel I'm coming on strong. But if I'm carrying out your side of the bargain then I expect you to do the same for me." He stopped and stared at her hard. Eden swallowed and carried on. "That whole village knows everyone else's business. They know you have a bed made for one, I guarantee it. It's just sleeping together, that's all. And It won't be for awhile yet so when the time comes it won't be so strange because we will be comfortable with each other."

He doesn't say anything, just nods. His eyes sweep down her body, watching as her hand tried to pull up the stocking underneath. He looked back up quickly. She sighed.

"Can you turn around please?" She saw his eyes widen in surprise before he swivelled around in the leaves, head tilted back to the sky. She leaned her back against a tress and pulled her heavy skirts above her hips. She tugged up the think woollen stocking and felt around for the clip on her garter. "So, who are we going to see?"

His back was tense as he spook. "It's one of the biggest loan companies in the US. The man I need to see is the son of the boss." His head tilted down, cocked to the side. Listening for her, she thought.

Eden clipped herself up but didn't let her dress down. She wondered what he would do if he turned now and saw her. Probably faint away she thought with a smirk. Her hand rested on her thigh and she trailed it upwards, the movement leaving a tickling sensation on her skin. She missed being touched.

"Eden?"

She shot away from the tree and flattened her dark skirts down, cheeks flushed. "I'm decent." He turned, visibly relieved to see that she was. They continued walking, the air between them thick. The silence stretched as they reached the station, Gabriel going to check for their luggage before standing and waiting for the train to pull up.

"You never said what his name was, the man we're going to see."

"Oh, sorry. It's Nathan Petrelli."

Eden frowned, looking confused. Gabriel cocked an eyebrow at her. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know…nothing really. Just that name sounds familiar."

"Well you might have heard of the family. They're big shots in the city. Rich."

Eden nodded, mind still trying to place a face to the name. It evoked an anxious feeling, why she couldn't say. As the train pulled up Eden patted her hair down, she had decided to wear it up and the waves in it made her feel like it was in disarray. "How do I look?"

"A bit yellow but it's fading." He saw her shoulders slump and spoke hastily. "You look nice! My mother says that you have skin like porcelain, like the dolls she has." As he helped her step up into the train his eyes stared at her longingly for a moment.

"I'm like a doll?" It was probably the only compliment she would get out of him so she might as well take it, even if it set her teeth on edge somewhat. They sat opposite each other, by the window. He stared at her, a hesitant smile on his face.

"Your lips, they're like a dolls." She pouted at him, then grinned. "Red like cherries." Eden felt her smile falter, after feeling a flush of happiness at his flattery, as his gaze lost focus as he stared at her. He wasn't seeing her at all. Eden looked away from him and stared out the window as the train started to move. As it picked up steam the windows become streaked with a down pour.


	5. Chapter 5

They would be staying in New York for two days, leaving enough time to sort out the loan business and for sight seeing. Eden hadn't been to the city in years and it was a place she didn't particularly want to be back in. Gabriel was at once extremely excited but uncomfortable, she could see it in his stiff posture when they walked amongst the thronging streets. After spending so much time amidst trees it came as a shock to be in such a loud and bustling place. They had booked into a inexpensive but nice hotel, both staying in separate rooms. Gabriel didn't think it would be proper for them to share a room.

Eden stood in front of a long mirror and brushed her hands down her best dress, which was her oldest but least worn. This meeting with Petrelli wasn't about impressions on her part but she wanted to look nice. She had a weakness for well tailored clothes and sometimes she wished that she could wear something different everyday, like she used to in the past. There was a soft tap at her door and she picked up her purse with nervous fingers. Gabriel was in his best clothes like her and while she felt comfortable he looked irritable, the suit stiff and the collar too tight.

"Relax, everything will be fine." Eden unbuttoned his collar and then walked down the corridor, Gabriel trailing behind. He caught up with her as they stepped out into the street.

"I made an appointment but I don't know if he'll see me, I never got a reply back." They were walking up to the Petrelli and Sons headquarters, an imposing building.

"Even if they won't see you that doesn't matter. You've got me!" She smiled encouragingly at him, which he returned weakly. "What floor is he on?"

"The ninth." They joined a group of people waiting for the elevator and got in, the contraption newly installed. Eden stood with her back pressed against him as he bent down to speak in her ear. "Are you sure this will work? I mean I've never actually seen you do your…_thing_ before."

Eden tilted her head up to him. "Would you like a little preview?" She asked salaciously. His eyes widened and he straightened away from her. Eden chuckled. When they reached the floor they entered a wide corridor, floored with a plush carpet, the heels of her boots made prints in it as she walked. She made an impressed face at Gabriel as they sat in Petrelli's reception area, after Eden had given Gabriel's name to the a lady behind the desk. As she got up and entered into his office Gabriel's legs started to shake in nervous anticipation. Eden moved her hand to still his knee when he suddenly clasped it in his own tightly.

"Thank you for being here." His smile was still nervous but thankful. Eden felt a swell of deep affection for him. She squeezed his hand and brushed the back of her fingers down his cheek. _Precious._

"I'm sorry but Mr. Petrelli has no record of you making an appointment." The polite, nasally voice made Gabriel's hand crush down hard around hers. Eden gave him a look and he loosened his grip. The she gave him a nod, silently telling him to watch, and then turned to the woman standing before them.

"_You're going to go back and sit at your desk as we go into see Mr Petrelli because we do have an appointment. You will do this now."_

When she had started her command she could hear Gabriel drawing in a sharp breath and hold it. Now it was released in a shaky exhale against the side of her neck. His hand tightened on hers as she stood up, bringing him with her. His eyes gleamed like diamonds.

Nathan Petrelli is a young looking forty or so, physically robust if short. He turned to them with a confused expression which changed to mild annoyance when he saw Gabriel.

"I told my sectary that -"

Eden moved forward with a welcoming smile, offering her hand. "Hello, I'm Eden." He shook her hand out of reflex, watching her under his brows with careful consideration. He smiled back in greeting, eyes flickered over her face.

"Do I know you?"

"Oh, I don't think so. Just have one of those faces."

"You sure do." He continued to stare at her, hand still holding hers. The sound of Gabriel clearing his throat broke Nathan away from her. Eden felt him hovering against her back.

"This is Eden McCain. My fiancé."

Nathan's eyebrows raised. "Really? Well, congratulations." His eyes looked down at Eden's ring bare hand and then up quickly. He smiled politely but his eyes mocked them, Eden could see it.

"I'm going to buy her a ring here. Couldn't get anything appropriate back home." Eden looked back at Gabriel in surprise. She hadn't even thought about getting the ring. He smiled down at her quickly.

Nathan's face lost the polite smile and he became serious. "Why exactly are you here? The last time you came to see me you asked to expand your business. Like I said before, I have nothing to offer you. I'm sorry."

Gabriel gripped her shoulders in his large hands firmly and moved her in front of him, close. His breath tickled against her ear. "Do it." He was shaking.

Eden had been using her ability for some time now, and she thought she had mastered it as successfully as she could. But she always has a stab of fear before she uses it, wondering if it will work. She took a deep breath and spoke.

"_You are not going to turn Gabriel down. His business is not a risk but an investment. You will give him the loan he wants_." Eden stopped when she felt one of Gabriel's hands move to her waist, squeezing her tight. "_Gabriel is wonderful and deserves every respect that you can show him._"

His lips were inches from her cheek, breath rhythmically blowing against her skin. He gasped when she started to complement him to Nathan, hand moving to lie flat against her abdomen, drawing her closer. Needing something to grab onto she thought. Eden bit her lip, trying to suppress the tingling feeling that had sprung up at the pit of her belly. "_Tell- tell Gabriel what you think of him_. _Tell him that he's indispensable to you_."

Nathan had been listening to her with a frowning, dazed expression. Now the dazed look cleared as he spoke. "Gabriel…Well I can't turn you away, not when I know you can make this work. I have faith that you can pick the business up, make it what it was - no, better - like when your father was alive." He smiled and walked to his desk, taking out papers from a draw. He sat down and started to sign them as he continued speaking. "I do admire you, you've had a tough life but you've done what you could. Now you're taking advantage of your talents. Because you are a fantastic artisan Gabriel." He signed the last page with flourish and looked up at them with a shark grin. "You did the right thing coming to me." He held out the pen to Gabriel.

All the while Gabriel had been quivering against her, chest moving like a bellows as he swelled with happiness. And that wasn't all the swelling she could feel, as something hard pressed against her back. Eden felt like his excitement must be catching because her heart was pounding and the feel of him next to her was driving her mind and body spinning, like a whirligig. Eden stepped away from him and stood by the door as Gabriel sat down and signed the papers, a huge grin on his flushed face. Nathan stared at her and she suddenly wondered what she must look like to him. Like a hay-tumbled girl no doubt. Her hand brushed strands of hair away from her face.

Gabriel sprung up from his seat, shaking Nathan's hand as he walked backwards towards her. The money would be wired to his account by the end of the week. Nathan wished her well, kissing her hand with that knowing look in his eye. When the office door closed behind them Gabriel laughed and grabbed her hand, twirling her around to him.

"Your gift is amazing! God, thank you!" Eden laughed at him as the elevator binged open. It was empty and they moved into the furthest corner together. Eden placed her arms around his mid section, pressing herself to him. His hands pushed against her back as he looked down at her. Eden wanted his lips to touch her, to imprint against her lips, cheek, chin, neck. She wanted to feel him kiss her everywhere for that hungry lust was in his eye and she wanted him to unleash it. She tilted her head back and stood on tip toe, the soft material of her dress brushing against his chest.

"Gabriel?" Her fingers faintly skimmed his down the tip of his nose, his mouth. He blinked at her and then his eyes focused on her hand. He whispered softly, voice thick.

"Ring. I have to get you one, before…"

"Before what?"

"Nothing." He smiled thinly and edged away from her gently. His face turned up to watch his reflection in the metal bars, distorted and fearful.

The sounds of their laboured breathing was all that accompanied the shriek of the cabals as they descended.


	6. Chapter 6

Eden lay restless on her bed, watching the sun sink over the city. She was itching to go out, to see her old haunts. But she knew it was a bad idea, too many people here knew the old her and that was someone she had left behind. She got up on her elbows and stared at the floral printed wall behind which Gabriel was. He'd never really been here often and had never, she suspected, been out at night. She got up from the bed, smoothing down her dress as she grabbed her shawl and purse and left her room. She could show him a night out, somewhere nice and quiet.

His collar was unbuttoned and his hair wasn't so severely combed as he answered the door to her. He frowned when he saw her attire. "You're going out?"

"No, we're going out." He had already started to shake his head.

"I don't feel like it. There isn't anywhere we could go, all the museums and parks would be closed for the night."

Eden moved into his room, picking up his coat from the coat tree and offered it to him. "Well good for us that we're going out to eat then, isn't it?"

He stood still, watching her face for a few moments before taking his coat from her. "I am hungry. Are we going to eat here?" He followed her out his room, watching as her as she quickly swished down the stairs. He hurried to keep up.

"The hotel doesn't have a dance floor. I know I nice little place that does. Come on."

Gabriel froze on the entrance as Eden walked out into the street. She turned to him with a mulish expression as he took a step back. "Dancing? I, umm, I don't like to do that very much I'm afraid. Maybe I shouldn't go."

She walked up to him, brow arched. "You'll let me go out, un-chaperoned? Not much of a fiancé, are you?" She watched as his jaw clenched, mouth thinning before he stepped forward and hooked her arm into the crook of his. She smiled unseen and walked them to the restaurant.

She brought him to a small Italian place, crowded but not claustrophobic. They had a seat at the back, furthest from the dance floor which seemed to put Gabriel at ease. She watched him as his eyes would rise over his menu, waiting for people to start dancing. She thought he looked a little nervous. "Don't worry, they won't start dancing till more people arrive and eat. They'll clear away the tables in the middle to make room."

"But we'll be gone by then, won't we?"

She rolled her eyes and looked down at the wine list. "Yes Gabriel, we'll be gone by then." They both ordered spaghetti, at Eden's suggestion, and then wine, Eden thinking it would be acceptable to treat herself. It wasn't really her tipple in the past anyway. The waiter was a handsome, very cheerful man, with a thick accent. His eyes lingered over Eden and she felt pleased despite herself. Gabriel looked away with a frown. When their food arrived Eden watched in expectation as his face showed signs of pleasure.

"This is delicious."

"I know, it's my favourite dish here. They're the best in the city."

Gabriel looked up at her, curling the pasta around his fork as he spoke. "You came here often?"

"Sometimes. I think I've been to all the coffee bars and restaurants here." She sighed and took her glass of red wine in her hand, sipping it slowly. "When I lived here before I used to go out every night, nowhere was bared from me…I met royalty once." She released a snort, remembering the event with a derisive nostalgia. Gabriel looked stunned, fork half way to his mouth.

"Royalty?"

"Yes. He wrapped me in mink." She bit her lip as his mouth opened in wonder, staring at her intensely. He suddenly blinked and brought the fork to his mouth, eyes downcast. Eden grinned at him, his childlike delight in things and then his prudishness never failing to amuse her. "It was a long time ago."

"Why did you ever leave? You had _everything_ you possibly could have wanted here." His words rung with disbelief.

"No I didn't," she said quietly. "I thought I did, believed it for years, but it wasn't true. But now," she looked at him softly "I have found the right place I want to be in. Or I think I have…" Eden put down her wine glass, surprised that the liquid had lowered as it had, as he smiled shyly. They finished their meal in silence, Eden wanting to make it last as long as possible. She eyed the wine bottle. She could feel her head becoming woozy already. There was a reason she didn't drink the stuff.

When their plates had been taken away they both sat back, full and satisfied. Gabriel had his wine glass in his hand, which he had been drinking in moderation from. The candle on their table flickered over them, making their shadows dance on the red walls. He sat forward. "Were you alone here before?"

"Alone? No, I had a great number of friends. Well, I call them friends…"

"No I mean someone…closer then a friend."

Eden leaned closer to him, elbows on the table. "Oh, I didn't have any serious relationships with anyone here. Before I arrived I did…"

His eyebrows raised behind his thick glasses frame, the candle flame reflected in the lenses. "I thought you were born here?"

"No. I'm a country girl! Born on a farm out west."

"I can't imagine you doing farm work." He grinned.

She laughed. "And you'd be right! I detested it." She straightened out her arm, showing him her wrist. "I'm just not made for that sort of manual work. I was stick thin and scrawny as a child. Still am really." He took her hand in his, turning over her wrist as he inspected it.

"You have bird bones, light and hallow." He looked up at her. "Or like the figurines you have in cuckoo clocks. Delicate. You have to handle them like they're spun glass. Otherwise they could break." He stared at her intensely, a pleased light smile on his face.

Eden suddenly had the vision of him snapping her, like she was made from dry plaster. She took her hand away gently, picking up her wine glass again. "What about you? Did you ever have a sweetheart?"

He looked surprised and brought his glass closer to his face, but didn't drink. "No, this is the first time I've done anything like this."

"With someone who isn't your mother?"

He frowned "I don't go to restaurants with my mother."

"Ah but she's the only woman you feel comfortable eating out with."

He looked down to his wine glass and murmured into it. "I _was_ feeling comfortable…"

"But you're not now?"

"I - I, I don't know. What were we talking about again?"

Eden grinned and took swig from her glass, then filled it up more from the bottle. "You wanted to know if I had been with anyone and I wanted to know the same." He remained silent, looking agitated. She released a breath. "Look Gabriel, you have to start feeling comfortable around me and that means opening up." She paused before bursting out, "I'm not a man eater, I'm not going to _tire_ you out, if that's what you're worried about. I can keep my hands to myself." She laughed loudly, hysterically. He watched her take a drink from her glass and then another. He looked conflicted and tilted her head, eyes fuzzy. "What is it?"

He didn't answer at first, just opened his mouth and closed it. She thought he was trying to get his thoughts in order before speaking. Finally he did, red in the face. "You know that I will uphold my end of our arrangement. I assure of that. But Eden." He shook his head, face apologetic. "It's just pretend, there won't be any of…that." He nodded at her, silently asking for her comprehension. Eden stared at him, eyes drilling into his without blinking. Gabriel looked away and sat back, taking a large gulp from his own glass.

Eden nodded, her lips twisted. "Of course I know that! It would be ridiculous of me to think otherwise, wouldn't it? I mean, you've never shown the slightest bit of interest in me." She could suddenly feel the phantom traces of his hand on her belly from earlier, his hot breath on her neck as she stood up unsteadily. "Why am I even here with you Gabriel?" She could feel the walls spinning and the candle light pulsing all around her.

His eyes flickered over the other diners before looking at her, displeased. "Eden, please be quiet."

She moved in front of him, looking down into his face. Her breathing felt restricted, her dress too tight. "I can't be in a marriage like that, without affection. You really don't feel anything for me? This morning, in that office you -"

"Eden please sit down!"

"Nothing, Gabriel? Nothing at all?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He looked pained, eyes large.

Eden straightened up, but leaned back too far so that he had to catch her hand to steady her. Her face twisted viciously. "Well, it will have to be an open marriage then!"

"W - What?"

"If you won't fuck me then I'll have to find others that will." Her loud voice reached almost everyone in the small, crowded place and scandalised gasps and shocked laughter were heard. Gabriel shoot up from his seat, face crimson and took her firmly by the arm and walked her outside while he went back in to pay the bill. His face was thunderous when he came back out, nostrils flared. Eden smiled pleasantly but her eyes were searing. "You can see other women too, _if_ that's your fancy."

"Stop! Just stop. You're drunk and don't know what you are saying. What is the matter with you?!"

She laughed. "With me? What about you?!" Her lips started to tremble when he didn't answer, the silence stretching and she found it hard to draw breath. "I - I'm scared. I made this crazy plan and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that I didn't make it." She moved closer to him, hands pressing flat to his chest. "I sometimes wake up at night, thinking that this power uses _me_, without me knowing it." She gazed blearily into his eyes.

He looked down at her, trying not to touch her. "You're scared of it?" He frowned. Her eyes began to glitter with tears and she nodded her head. He took her hand and lead her away from the restaurant and sat her down on a stoop, hidden from sight. "You don't have to be scared Eden. It's a gift what you have been given."

Eden shifted herself closer to him, her heart pounding erratically in her chest. "Kiss me Gabriel." He didn't react, only stared at her with lips slightly parted. "Do it!"

"Are you forcing me to?" He looked accusatory at her, while his breathing became shallow.

"No! Just do it and see. You don't know unless you try. Just once…" She said in a singsong and moved her face closer to his but he dodged away, standing up and taking her with him.

"You're extremely drunk Eden, you don't know what you're doing. I think we should go back to the hotel now." He looked very nervous, eyes continually moving to look at her lips and away again. Eden gripped his suit in her fists and pulled herself up to his face and kissed him fast. When he felt her lips on his, he stumbled, back hitting the wall. She placed her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him harder, so that she could feel the impression of his teeth against her lips. His lips were silky soft and warm. His hand pushed at her shoulder weakly, while the other hovered over her body, not knowing where to touch. When she felt his body beginning relax she attacked him greedily, lust flushing through her as she placed her hand flat against his groin, wanting to see if she had got the reaction she craved. He moaned into the kiss as her hand rubbed him and he began to harden. Eden thought he had begun to respond, his mouth pushing against hers and his hand on her shoulder drawing her close, when he suddenly pushed her away.

"What's wrong?" She whispered breathlessly, voice and mind feeling slow and thick. He looked angry.

"Nothing!" He walked away from her, head tilted to the side. "I'm going back to the hotel!" With that he walked quickly from her. Eden stayed where she was, thinking about just standing still in one place. But she followed behind him, the streets seesawing sickly under her as they kept their distance from each other.


	7. Chapter 7

Eden had awakened in the morning with her head pounding and her mouth feeling as arid as a desert. She had been sick twice during the night and had found it difficult to get to sleep. She was in a grouchy mood and just wanted to be out of the damned city. Gabriel hadn't said anything to her, just knocked on her door to see if she was ready before heading for a taxi, not even looking her in the face.

They sat in silence on the train back and Eden started to feel increasingly angry. Not at him but herself. She had made a total fool out of herself, an embarrassing sceptical. If he didn't want anything to do with her before he certainly wouldn't now. She tried to sleep but the events from last night would appear before her eyelids and nothing she did would make them go away. She also had the feeling he was staring at her while she couldn't see, burning a hole into her with his angry eyes. She opened her own as he turned his head to the window.

"I'm sorry Gabriel." She waited for him to speak but he just continued to stare out of the window, brows lowered behind his glasses. When they made it to the train station Gabriel hired a carriage to take them through the woods, possibly so as not to spend that amount of time walking with her alone, Eden thought. When he helps her step down his touch is light, only enough to assist and she didn't want to lean on him to much. She feels skittish around him now, not wanting to make him annoyed by being too close to him. Earlier that morning she had taken his arm and he had sprung back from her like she was fire, face suspicious. He was worried that she was going to try and kiss him again. Or do more.

His mother is overjoyed to have him back and he returns the greeting, giving her a quick hug. He brushed by Eden and entered the shop, leaving his mother looking confused and Eden dejected.

"Is everything ok? Did the meeting go well?"

Eden sighed and nodded, walking into Virginia's kitchen where she put the kettle on the stove to make them both tea. "Yes, the meeting went very well. We just had a…disagreement about something." Eden sat down and watched the other woman set out a cold launch. Virginia put down a plate and looked at her with anxiety.

"You got into a fight? Gabriel's not argumentative."

"He is stubborn though."

"He can be, but my boy wouldn't cause offence."

Eden leaned back in her chair. "No he wouldn't, would he?" Virginia poured her out a cup of tea, then sat down, as the soup boiled on the stove. Eden opened her mouth, wanting to spill out everything that had happened, but she stilled her tongue. What could she say to the woman? She clearly idolised her son. But she probably knew him better then anyone. "I - I don't know how to act around him. I'm not a cold person, I like to show affection but he doesn't seem to want it."

Virginia smiled and patted her hand where in lay on the table. "Oh but he does. It's true that he's never been one for hugs, even as a boy. But he's just shy." She was silent for a few minutes, sipping her tea. Finally she spoke in a hushed tone. "When he was five I got him a kitten and showered it with affection, used to take it everywhere with him!" She smiled gently at the memory before it stared to fade. "He held it too tight one day and suffocated it. He buried it and didn't tell me. But I knew." She saw Eden's shocked expression and leaned forward eagerly.

"You see? He cares about things too much, he loves too much. He's scared of hurting people so doesn't get too close." She looked at her with tear rimmed eyes. "My son wouldn't hurt anyone and it breaks my heart that he's alone, because I know he deserves better for himself." Her eyes sparkled as she took in Eden's face. "His whole life I've told him that he could be more, that he could go out there and take the whole world in his hands! But he never tried, wanting to keep doing his little hobby. And then you came along and he's doing it! Don't give up on him Eden, he just doesn't wanna hold you too tight, that's all."

Eden stared at her, wondering if Gabriel had been given many kittens.

*

He sat at his work station, intently working on a carriage clock. Eden took a seat behind him quietly, watching him work. He knew she was there, his shoulders stiffening at the sound of her dress rustling against her chair as she sat. He ignored her and kept on working, picking up his small, shiny tools neatly laid out on a dark velvet cloth next to him. It wasn't boring to watch him, as she thought it might be but soothing, his movements calmly precise and slow. She was lulled by the sounds of time ticking away, soothing her aching head. She finally spoke, just above a whisper. "I shouldn't drink. It loosens my tongue, makes me utter things I shouldn't. I embarrassed myself and you and I apologise. You must think I'm a fool."

When she had started to speak his movements conveyed irritability, fingers tightening a spring too tight in reflex. Now he put his tool down and sat back, head cocked to the side to listen to her, back visibly relaxing.

"It's ok, I understand." He turned to her, elbow resting on the back of his chair as he looked at her gently. "I was shocked. No one has ever behaved in that way towards me. I - I wasn't sure how to act." His eyes darted back and forth, like he was looking for anyone hidden that had heard his confession. "I mean, I was out of sorts." His eyes fell on her upturned face as he paused in consideration. "Why did you do it? It's like you wanted to humiliate me." His voice was small and hurt.

Eden moved forward in her chair, knees bent next to his chair legs. "No, I never wanted to do that. I know I was a sight in the restaurant but outside that wasn't to humiliate you. Gabriel…I like you. I think you're a humble, kind person and I feel safe around you. But - well. I also think you're attractive and I expressed that opinion in not the most tactile way possible." She could feel her face burning but she wanted to say it, to get her feelings across to him. "The only person I humiliated most was myself. It won't happen again."

His breathing rate increased as he stared at her, for how long Eden wasn't sure. His lips parted and trembled, like he was trying to stop himself from smiling. Finally he couldn't hold it back any longer and it stretched wide across his face. "You really mean it? You feel that way about me?" Eden nodded, her own mouth smiling uncertainly, not knowing how to interpret his change of behaviour.

"I can't explain it but I do. I feel like I've meet you before, like we had been close in some other time. It sounds silly but that's what it's like." She held her breath as he leaned closer to her, smiling.

"You want to stay because you feel something for me? Not just because I can provide you with an easier life?" There was a desperate hope shining on his face and he suddenly cupped her cheek, before brushing tendrils of hair away from her temple with gentle fingers.

Eden released a pent up breath. "I need to be near you Gabriel." She imagined that her face must mirror the hope on his face as she asked what she had been wishing for. "Do you? Feel the same?" She watched as his face froze, smile still in place but his eyes losing that happier light. Then he smiled softly, standing as he reached his hand into his pocket. Eden saw him pull out a small navy box from it and presents it to her while taking his seat again.

"I was going to give this to you when we were in the city but I got side tracked. I hope you like it." He watched her nervously as she opened the box and looked at the gold ring nestled inside. It was set with a tear shaped opal. "Your birthday is in October isn't it? My mother says it's bad luck to wear opals unless it's your birthstone."

Eden took the ring out and nodded "Yes, I was born in that month. It's beautiful Gabriel." He looked delighted and gently took her left wrist in his hand, while the other slipped the ring down her wedding finger. It fitted perfectly. Eden held her hand out before her, watching the stone flash blue in the light. This was it she thought, I've been claimed. Gabriel stood back up and she followed him. She'd just been made someone's fiancé and she could count the number of times he's touched her on one hand. She looked up at him and spoke with a slight plead. "Will you let me hug you? I think the occasion asks for it."

Thankfully he looked pleased by her request and she placed herself between his open arms, twinning her own around his back. She would have moved away but he held her tighter, hands on her arms moving down softly. He stared to explore her figure, fingers trailing over her shoulders and down her back, moving lightly to trail his fingertips down either side of her small waist before settling his large hands flat against her hips. She could feel his face by the top of her head, breathing in the sent of her hair.

"You're so tiny."

"Well, I would be next to you. You're huge. Although -" She tightened her arms around his waist "You have no hips at all. Just very, very tall. Bean poll…" She was blabbering on now but she didn't care. She pressed the side of her face into his chest, hearing his heart beating. While hers was calm his was starting to beat faster. Eden yawned, making her jaw crack. "I need to take a nap, haven't had much rest…"

"You can if you want to."

"I don't think I can force myself to walk home, I'll fall asleep on my feet before I get there no doubt."

His hands tightened slightly on her as he spoke "I meant you could sleep here. It's just a nap. My - my bed would be acceptable wouldn't it?"

Eden lifted her head from his chest, smiling at as his tentative manner. "Yes, thank you, that would be nice." He gently took her hand and lead her up the stairs to his room. It was small but very neat. He had a small bookcase by his bed. Eden raised her eyebrows in surprise. Not that many people had a book collection in the village, many not able to afford it. But the small bed called to her and she sat on it as Gabriel hovered by the door. As she removed her shoes and swung her legs up he shut the door, whispering her rest. Eden breathed in the clean smell of him as she succumbed to sleep.

*

The Palace was placed by the ocean. She could hear the waves rhythmically washing back and forth below. Soon she couldn't distinguish it from her own breathing, her own heartbeat. She was standing in a large vaulted place, a winding stair stretching up into nothing. And everywhere she could see paint. It splashed all over the walls in every colour imaginable. It squelched slippery under her bare feet and stained the bottom of her dress as she moved forward. The smell of turpentine assaulted her nostrils and made her head spin.

She was not alone, a man was also there before her. He had a paint brush in hand and, like everything else, was covered in paint. His hair was a dark knotted mess. He was feverishly working, bent over a canvas set at his feet. Eden took a step nearer and slipped, her hand reached out for support but caught onto nothing. She fell with a sticky flump onto the floor. The man straightened up suddenly, turning to her.

White blind eyes staring out of a once classically handsome face, now wasted, pinned her in place. "The Matchmaker sent you? I knew you would come." He pointed the end of his brush at the canvas he was working on and Eden saw it wasn't canvas but the floor. Amongst the swirl and explosions of colour she could make out herself, sitting up right where she was now, face very white and lips very red. She looked up the at the walls and watched dazedly as other images made themselves noticeable.

"Where am I?"

"You are-" he broke off and suddenly melted in front of her, dissolving into a puddle of paint next to her toes. Eden screamed in shock when she felt an icy cold claw grip her face and wrench her towards whatever it was attached to. Eden bolted up from the bed, her hands automatically reaching to touch her jaw. Nothing, she was alone.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a week until Christmas and they had decided to let Eden stay with them over the holiday. They had been spending over a month with each other now and Gabriel found her presence not an odd intrusion any longer but something he longed for. She smiled at him over the kitchen table when she caught him staring at her and pushed a newspaper to him across the table.

"That's the fifth one now. Nate really does have all sorts of connections."

Nate. Not Nathan or Mr Petrelli but _Nate_. Gabriel smiled thinly as he looked down at what she was pointing out. There, in a largish white box set at the bottom of the page was his advert. _Gray and Sons._ His name in print in all the national newspapers across the country. Every time he saw it he let that slow volcano feel of happiness lift him up, making him feel apart from himself. Right now hundreds, thousands of people were looking at his ad and wondering who Gabriel Gray was.

"He says that he has contacts with The Times in London."

"Ooh, did you hear that Gabriel?! London! Your name recognised all the way over there!" Virginia clasped her hands to her bosom, face almost euphoric. "Mr Petrelli is a good man for doing this for you. He did the Christian thing and took a second chance. Bless the lord."

"Not only that but he's taking us shopping!" Eden grinned at him from her seat, almost but not quite, bouncing.

"What?" Gabriel could feel that momentous elation being ebbed away with every mention of his name.

"He sent me a letter asking if we would like to go Christmas shopping with us. I think it's a wonderful idea and said yes."

Gabriel stared at her for a moment, a nonsensical flash of anger boiling through him. "And you didn't think to ask _me_ before responding back?"

Eden's eyes widened in surprise before one of her eyebrows cocked slightly. "I didn't think I needed your permission. I'll remember that next time." Her eyes were hinting at something, dark and mocking. "Well Nate said that we could stay at his house -"

"Have you been writing to him often?"

She guffawed. "No! Of course not. I've been _helping _him get you in the papers, you know that. What's got you in this mood? He's being kind to us. It would be rude to turn down his hospitality, wouldn't it?"

She was right. He nodded and smiled at her softly. "Yes, sorry." She got up and brushed her fingers through his hair, simultaneously aggravating him and making him shiver at the sensation. Since he had given her the ring she had backed off from her pursuit of him, since he had started to touch her himself. Every night he would kiss her cheek as she went to bed. His mother had set up his old bedroom for Eden to use. He had found out that she was having nightmares, every night it seemed, and she seemed to take comfort from the little rite they performed every night. _Goodnight and pleasant dreams._

"Well, we better get packed. I'd hoped we wouldn't have to go back into that place…"

*

The Petrelli mansion was situated in Hyde Park, near the river. Gabriel looked at the huge white building in front of him, the gravel crunching under his feet and felt painfully inadequate. One day he would have something like that. Better.

"Look at the garden! They must have such a hassle keeping it looking so trim." Eden stared at the grass and evergreen tress with envious wonder, her breath fogging up in the cold air as she spoke. She brushed her hands down her dress again as they rung the bell and waited. A maid came to the door and asked for their names. Once she had them they were invited to enter. They stepped into a large, warm foyer; marble pillars and a beautiful staircase in front of them. The maid took their coats as a woman in her thirties walked through a door and strode up to them. Her face was all strong angles and her eyes were Alaskan blue. She smiled a perfectly straight set of white teeth at them in welcome.

"Gabriel Gray and Eden McCain nee Gray?" Her startling eyes switched between each as she named them.

Eden frowned "Yes?"

"I'm Heidi Petrelli, Nathan's wife." She stepped aside and swept her arm back, motioning them to enter into the lounge. A fire was roaring on the hearth and two boys were playing with toy trains on an expensive red rug.

"So Mr Petrelli told you we were coming?" His wife smiled at Gabriel and he felt his stomach knot. That was a stupid question, of course she knew they were coming. "I mean -"

"Well I should, seeing as I was the one to ask Nathan to invite you both." She saw both of their surprised expressions and laughed. Her eyes fell on Eden "My husband has talked about you often. And you to Mr Gray. I wanted to meet the couple that had made such an impression." Her smile was still in place but Gabriel felt there were too many teeth in it as she watched Eden, her eyes too bright. Eden's face faltered before steeling.

"Hello! Glad to see that you've got here!" Nathan came striding into the room, giving his wife a kiss on the cheek as he placed an arm around her waist. His hooded eyes fell on Eden "There's my little business partner!" Gabriel watched her roll her eyes with a giggle.

"Not that little thank you!"

"We know our own."

They both chuckled as Gabriel and Heidi watched them with uncertain smiles. Gabriel suddenly found himself mimicking the man in front of him, circling his arm around Eden. He had to stoop down slightly. Eden saw what he was doing and laughed harder. Nathan joined in.

"Ahem. Dinner should be ready now. I'm sure you're both hungry?" Heidi flashed that grin again.

Eden caught her breath and nodded, hand to her chest. "Oh yes, sorry. That would be wonderful." Gabriel removed his arm from her they walked into the dinning room, the luscious food already set out for them. He ate silently while Eden and Nathan chatted happily, Heidi looking on stonily.

While Heidi left them to help put her sons to bed Gabriel drifted away from where Eden and Nathan were talking, his exclusion from their talk making him feel like a third wheel. He was drawn to a large book collection but he couldn't concentrate. His eyes would swivel to them whenever their words reached him or they laughed loudly. He was always making her laugh, the mans cynical temperament matching well with her sarcastic humour. Gabriel wasn't funny, he couldn't make her laugh like that.

He watched her as she bent over, chest exposed and the swell of her breasts heaving and he had to turn away, eyes squeezed shut. He should never have touched her! Never gotten close. He was supposed to be cool and distant, that way he was safe. But every night and every morning he thought about her non stop. The ever increasing need to be latched on to her was becoming harder to repress. He wanted her smiles, looks, words, breaths and touches to be given onto him. He wanted her undivided attention. She made him feel so much better about himself then those black and white prints. But he was paying the price for his feelings now. He knew she would lose interest in him.

"Gabriel? Are you alright over there?" Eden's voice grew louder as she approached him. He took a calming, mask forming breath and turned to her with a soft, sleepy smile.

"Yes. I was just looking at his book collection."

"It's wonderful isn't it? I only had the Bible and Pilgrims Progress to read growing up."

"Me to." She looked up into his face with consideration.

"You look tired. Has the food made you sleepy?" She brushed the hair off his forehead and his eyelids fluttered shut. "I'm going to bed now."

"I'll join you." He opened his eyes to her amused face.

"Will you?"

"I mean I'm going to bed also." He loathed the way she made him inarticulate.

"Good." She drew out the word teasingly. They both bid goodnight to Nathan as a maid showed them to their rooms. Eden opened her door and turned to him. "Well, goodnight." She moved to him and he bent down to kiss her, something that was becoming so routine now he feared something bad would happen if they didn't. His lips drew along her cheek as she pulled away, the smell of her perfume and soap enveloping him. He breathed his side of the incantation softly. She whispered her parting and made to close her door. His hand caught hers and he drew her back quickly, bringing her left hand up to his face before kissing her gold band, tongue pressing against the warm stone. He stepped back and darted into his own room, unable to bring himself to see what her expression might be.

He alternatively sat on his bed until the tension got too much or paced his room in nervous exasperation. He was moving too fast, he shouldn't be acting on these feeling. His thoughts were interrupted, after two hours of whirling inner discourse, to the sound of her door being opened and shut softly. He moved to his own and listened to the scrape of material on the carpet. Her dress. When it had passed he opened his door and saw the back end of her dress going down the stair. She was wearing her coat. Gabriel quickly grabbed his own and quietly followed her.

She walked all the way out of the grounds and on to the main road. From there she hailed a carriage. Gabriel hailed one himself, keeping a sharp eye on Eden's to give the driver directions. Finally after some time it stopped and she got out into a seedy part of town. Gabriel got out and paid the driver, keeping a safe distance. She was moving across the street fast, head down, towards a large dark wooden building. It looked like a theatre.

Gabriel didn't want to go near it, the very fact that he had followed her making him feel excruciatingly guilty already. He waited, leaning against the end of someone's stoop with his arms crossed tightly against his chest. It was very cold. His feet began to feel numb and he thought about leaving, she was probably here for some innocent reason; maybe a friend lived there. Just when he was about to give up and leave someone walked out from the building.

Nathan.

The man stopped on the street, looking up and down before looking behind him. Eden came to him, taking his arm as they stood talking to each other. Gabriel watched him kiss her hand before hailing a cab for him alone.

"Your face will stay like that if the wind changes." The high, scratchy voice brought Gabriel back to himself. The speaker was a scabby looking old man, face blotchy from drink. "You can stare and stare but that won't make them come to you laddie."

"What? Do you know what that place is?

"I. 'Tis the whore house."

A brothel. Eden had met Nathan in a brothel.


	9. Chapter 9

She walked into the Red House, knowing that he would be there waiting for her. Sure enough Eden saw him standing in the entrance, looking cold and eager.

"You might have waited for me?! You can't get in to see her without me."

"I all but run the biggest loan company in the States and I can't get into a damn whore house." He stamped his feet against the ground as his irritable mutterings carried over to Eden. She sighed and knocked on the door. They were admitted with no problems.

She hadn't been inside the place for almost two years but it still looked exactly the same. The dusky red light and smell of sweat and sex infused everything, seeping into the skin. They made their way up the staircase, the rug fraying greatly as the edge and past many doors along a large corridor. Her old room was here, next to Nicole's.

"Are you sure she said yes?" He was looking very anxious, stark contrast to his usually composed self.

"Yes. I wrote to her and she agreed. Don't worry, she wants to see you. I'm sure everything will be fine." She gave him a reassuring smile. He nodded to her and she knocked on the door. Nathan had once been one of her clients, once or twice she had been on her back for him. When he had recognised her she didn't make him forget for she had received a letter from him, expressing that he wasn't out to ruin her but needed her help. He wanted to find Niki. Eden had realised years ago that her old friend was in love with Nathan, and he with her. They had a child together but Nathan wouldn't leave his wife so Niki had left. Nathan had been secretly looking for her ever since and Eden had moved on. Eden had been in sporadic contact with her for years and was surprised to find out she had moved back here. She had always told Eden she was going to become a dancer, get her daughter away from all this. Eden had taken pity on Nathan, for he seemed genuinely eager to see his old mistress again and his child.

The door opened and Eden watched Nathan's face glow. "Niki." He whispered in a small, amazed voice. The tall, beautiful blonde drew in a shaky breath at the sight of him before turning to Eden. She quickly pulled her into a fierce hug before quickly moving away. Eden knew she had a fear of touching, believing that she could hurt people that way. That was why she performed in the theatre, not in the beds. She was never been quite right in the head…

"Thank you sweetheart." With that she took Nathan's hand and pulled him in to her room, shutting the door behind them. Eden waited, possibly more out of curiosity then anything. She watched the men knocking on doors and men coming out of them. The soft sounds of moans could be heard faintly. She felt oddly happy to be there, a sense of nostalgia and superiority. She didn't need to spread her legs for any man now. Well, only one. Eden scoffed and then became remorseful at the thought when the door opened gently and Nathan came out. He appeared solemn.

"Was everything ok?"

"No but it's better then what it was."

"Your daughter?" She watched his eyes become soft.

"I can see her. Secretly." He looked around the walls. "Niki won't be in here any more. She's going to get help." Eden wasn't sure if he meant money or something else. She made to move towards the room but he caught her arm, shaking his head. "She's having one of her turns. I think it's best if she's left alone." Eden raised her brows and relented. She knew all about her "turns." Sometimes she didn't get letters from Niki at all but her claiming to be someone else.

They both left but Nathan turned back, forgetting his gloves. He joined her out on the cold, dark street. "Thank you Eden. We might have first met in not the most favourable circumstances but I value everything that you've done. I won't forget that."

"What you've done for Gabriel is enough." Eden couldn't help but feel a flush of guilt when she said it.

"He's a lucky man."

"And I'm sure he'll come to realise that soon." Her sarcastic comment generated a smirk from him as he took her hand and kissed it. He flagged down a cab and left with a nod.

Eden looked back at the House before hailing her own cab to take her back. Gabriel will be getting up soon, just as she gets to bed.

*

But Gabriel didn't get up to see her because he wasn't there at all. Feeling to overly tired to sleep herself she had knocked on his door, knowing that he was an early riser. She stood there for a few minutes before a maid came timidly up to her.

"I'm sorry miss are you knocking for Mr Gray?"

"Yes. He's probably still asleep or downstairs." She watched the maid's head shake.

"Oh no miss. He left suddenly late last night."

"What?"

"Yes miss, during the night."

"Why? Did he say why?"

"No miss, not that I know of." The girl stood there, waiting for her to speak. Eden excused her with a thank you before calling her back.

"Can you tell the Petrelli's that I'm very sorry but I to need to leave straight away?"

"Of course miss." She curtsied to Eden and scurried away.

Eden stood still, her mind trying to work out his absence. Her stomach felt sick with worry. Gabriel would not just leave for no reason, especially with no word to her. Something bad must have happened. Maybe his mother…

Eden, who hadn't unpacked her things, took her bag and left for the station.

*

"Gabriel. Gabriel where are you?" Eden looked around the deserted shop, dropping her bag into the floor as she looked around. No sign of him upstairs either.

"Eden?!" Virginia came running into the shop, looking pale. "What did you do?!" Gone was the simpering pleasantries and in it it's place anger.

"I'm sorry? I don't know what you mean? Where is Gabriel, he left without telling me."

Virginia pointed a finger at her. "You've upset my son. I haven't seen him this distressed since his father passed away. What did you do?"

"I told you, I haven't done anything. What did he tell you?"

"Nothing! Just kept on repeating your name. Something must have happened. He - he took all your clothes."

"My clothes?"

"Everything that belonged to you he took and left with it. I think he's gone to your house. He was, was…" She trailed off, her voice become chocked as she looked at her accusingly.

Eden stood staring at her in confusion before darting out the door. She picked up her skirts and ran, her way dangerous as it was not light yet. Finally out of breath her house came into view. Gas light shinned from every window and through the open door.

"Gabriel?" She walked into her empty front room, before moving into her bedroom. Her things where strewn about the room, a chair upturned by her desk. Her wardrobe was open and she could see he had started to hang them up. She angrily picked up her dresses and put them away. "Gabriel!" She walked out into her back garden but didn't see him. She turned around and jumped in shock. He was sitting with his back to her house, next to the door. He had his head down and he looked up at her slowly. He'd been crying, tears still fresh. He stared to shake violently, whether from the cold or not Eden wasn't sure. His eyes, free from his glasses, were huge. But as he took in her judging face he leapt to his feet.

"Give it back!"

Eden shrank away from him, his expression startlingly vicious. He grabbed her left arm and jerked her towards him. His hand pulled her left one up and he brutally pulled the ring off her finger. To Eden's horrified cry he drew back his arm and threw it in to her garden, lost in the dark undergrowth.

"Why did you do that?! What is the matter with you?!" Her voice was screechy to her ears, high with angry disbelief. He turned to her with a snarl.

"You obviously don't want it or me. It's no more then junk to you!"

Eden struggled out of his hold and searched her garden, getting on her knees in the place she thought it would be, the light from her house offering guidance. She couldn't see it. She gave up and looked up at him in rage "What is wrong with you? You've lost your mind!"

He bent down and brought his face close to hers. She was just coming to realise how animalistic he looked, teeth sharp like fangs. "Don't pretend like you don't know! I saw you!" His voice became a growl.

She got up on to her feet, his height making her uncomfortable being on her knees, squaring her shoulders at him. "I have no idea what you are talking about. You saw me what?"

He shook his head at her, hands tightened into fists at his side as he smiled awfully at her. "I knew this would happen! You don't want me. You just want to use me then leave. You mock me all the time, make me feel things I shouldn't, talking about me behind my back with _him_."

Eden had never seen him so out of control before, his ranting making her gasp. "Him? Who's him?"

"NATHAN!" His face became almost demonic as roared the name at her, taking a threatening step forward, hands reaching for her. Eden wanted to run but her feet wouldn't move, her muscles seizing up.

"W - what has he got to do with anything?" She could hear the guilty quality to her voice and cringed. Instead of grabbing her he pointed a finger into her face.

"Everything! You're sleeping with him! Why would you want someone like me when you could have him? I bore you and I'm pathetic and, and -" He hesitated, face going red with the effort to speak. "And you're sleeping with him! In a brothel!"

Eden rocked back. "How do you- you followed me?!"

"So you don't deny it?"

"I've got nothing to defend! I can't believe you followed me."

"You're whore! You're a sinner!"

Eden suddenly felt her legs again and moved up to him, face thrust up into his, eyes blazing. "Don't you dare play that with me! You knew what I was, even though you never mentioned it. I am not a whore! I have done nothing wrong." They stared at each other hard, both their dark eyes fiery, before Eden took a breath and moved back from him. She looked at him with reproach, brows lowered in confusion over her eyes. "It's like you want to find fault in me."

"Not when it's already there to see." He bit back.

"Is that it then? You want me to leave you?" He didn't speak but his eyes flickered. "Why are you pushing me away Gabriel?"

"I'm not in the wrong." He whispered "You're the one that leads a sinful double life. I could never give you anything respectful because it's not in you to begin with. You're untrustworthy and false."

Eden felt the fight drain out of her. He was incessant. "No Gabriel, I was meant to be your wife. I've done everything that you've asked of me. Given you the glory and recognition that you craved." She laughed, without any humour. "Some kind of husband you would have made. I'd be sleeping cold even if you did consummate."

His mouth thinned into a grimace, eyes flashing.

"Men. All cut from the same cloth and that includes you. Use me then treat me like I'm pond scum. You should be congratulated really, you haven't even had me on my back and you've already kicked me into the dirt." She could feel years worth of anger and fear surfacing, made even more potent at her recent happiness. "I can't handle or figure out your swinging emotions Gabriel. One moment you are sweetly attentive and the next cold as ice. It's ridiculous! You're ridiculous." She sneered up at him. "You are right. I've had many, many men in my short life Gabriel and I can see where you are lacking. I want a man not some platonic, stiltedly immature boy."

She waited for him to wilt in front of her but her words seemed to inflate him, breath coming and going in great gulps. She could see him shaking all over and felt a current run through her body at the sight. She wanted to hurt, use the words that would cause pain, wanted to make him feel the anguish and disappointment she was experiencing. "You are impotent, in every sense of the word." He looked like he had been hit by lightening and Eden turned her back on him. She made it on to the threshold, feeling hot and tingling with misplaced triumph, when a fist grabbed the back of her dress and swung her around.

She was pushed roughly up against the wall and she felt him grope whatever of her he could reach. She gasped in a shocked breath when she felt his hands on her breasts, kneading them hard. Eden placed her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him away, shouting at him. Her cries were cut short when he claimed her lips with his own, tongue forcing it's way into her mouth. His kisses were feverishly eager, unskilled but strongly passionate. She was kissing him back, all resistance gone, her hands delving into his hair and wrenching his head closer to hers. He broke away from her gasping and pulled her hands down and placed one between their bodies, on the straining cloth of his groin. He pushed her hand against his hardness as he breathed frantically into her ear.

"You do this to me! I can't control myself anymore!" His voice was filled with distressed amazement. She moaned something at him and squeezed his arousal in her fist convulsively, wanting to feel it hot and heavy in her hand. "Uuh Christ! I can't! I can't trust you!" His voice was a whine.

"You can. Please Gabriel. I swear it, please!" She kissed him with her already swelling lips and he pushed her more powerfully against the wall. He firmly glided his hands down her waist before reaching and dipping his hand into her dress, between her legs. She groaned and gasped for breath, pushing her hips forward.

"I just want to - want to feel you there." She whispered her consent as he forced his hands up her skirts and gripped her thighs, drawing them apart before shoving his fingers against her naked vagina. His fingers find her wet and warm and he separates her lips, searching her. His face was before hers and she could see the way his face changed. His eyes became startled and the erection against her hand became even more hard. The feel of her aroused state against his own flesh seemed to shock him back into himself for he suddenly snatched his hand away, pulling away from her.

"Gabriel don't. I want you." She reached out her arms to him in invitation.

"Get in the house and lock the door." His voice was low and deadly. He was ready to explode with what he was repressing.

"What? No Gabriel!"

"Do it! God help me I'll take you right now if you don't get away from me. It's not right, you're not right, we're not married. Get in the house and lock the door!" Eden stayed where she was, staring at him in dazed bafflement. When she didn't move he darted forward and grabbed her arm hard and pushed her through the door, closing it behind him with a slam. "Lock it! The key is in your room. Oh God, I want it so much but I can't give you what you want."

Eden stood blinking at the back of her door before taking the key off her bed and locking it. She pressed herself against it and heard him sigh in weary relief on the other side. She heard his back hit the wood and the sound of him lowering to the ground. She followed his movement, sitting down with her legs crossed. "Gabriel?" She got no answer but she could hear him, crying softly. Those cries soon turned into gasps and Eden knew what he was doing, the sound of his clothes rhythmically rubbing against each other and the way his breath got heavier.

She wanted that release herself, was aching for it. She pulled her dress up and fingered herself into a fast orgasm, unsatisfying for all its intensity. She heard him whimpering her name and the sound of his head or fist slamming against the door. After that there was just their laboured breathing which soon regulated. Eden sat where she was, suddenly feeling unbelievably exhausted but she couldn't sleep, not yet. She called to him softly through the door but all was silent from him. An hour or two past, she may have fallen asleep, when she hears a soft tap on the door. The light of a pale dawn was starting to shine in the east as she opened it apprehensively.

A gold ring in shaking, raw fingers. Dirt under the fingernails.

Eden stares at it like she'd never seen it before then raised her eyes to him. He was almost blue with the cold, messy hair a dark contrast to his skin. He looked at her with defeat, wretched and depressed. But thankfully in control. "I've been thinking for hours about what to say to you and I can't think of anything to explain myself. You left me Eden and I lost my head. Please don't abandon me."

"Do you love me Gabriel?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I want you in my life and I'll go insane if you don't take this." He waved the ring at her gently.

Eden moved to touch it, rimming her finger down the warm metal. She spoke as she stared at it. "If you ever act that way around me again, say those things to me again, I will leave you." She stared into his eyes firmly.

He pressed his lips together, nodding his head as his eyes glistened. "Never. I promise, I promise." His lips parted as she plucked the ring from his fingers, placing it back on her finger. He exhaled a shaky laugh, smiling at her erratically. He moved towards her stiffly and took her arm, moving his hand down it before pinching the end of her sleeve between his fingers.

She pulled him gently into her room, shutting the door against the cold morning air.


	10. Chapter 10

_note: Smut from here on out ;)_

* * *

Eden places him in her armchair by the fire, which was unlit. She set light to the wood and stoked it till it burned bright. He was spasmodically shivering, arms crossed tight over his chest as he watched her work. She was continuously yawning, one following after the other and he was starting copy her.

"You should go to bed."

"I know. I'll get you warmed up first." She picked up a tartan patterned blanket from her bed and set it around him, tucking it in around his body. With every touch he trembled harder. Eden leaned over him, trying not to yawn when he suddenly gathered her up in his arms and sat her down on his lap. She thought about getting back up, the visuals of him from the night before still fresh in her mind but stayed put. She relaxed back into his chest as his arms wrapped themselves around her waist.

"January seems such a long way away."

January. The month of their marriage. She spoke softly against his shoulder "Do you think you can wait until then?" She wiggled her bottom against his groin. And then cracked her jaw with a huge yawn. "Oh, sorry."

"Eden…"

"Can you?"

He stiffened against her "Yes, I think I can." He was starting to redden, shifting in his seat. "It's not really a matter of what I want or what you want even. We can't do it, it's just not the appropriate time yet."

She moved her head up to whisper into his ear. "You didn't seem perturbed last night from touching me in a place you, apparently, can't have yet." Her lips brushed softly around the shell of his ear. His hand tightened around her hip as he groaned, pelvis uncontrollably jerking up against her body. She unbuttoned his waist coat and snaked his tie off from around his neck. "I think you won't be able to resist. You'll spend day after day with this pressure growing in you. That little glimpse you got won't be enough. You'll want me more and more and then finally -"

"Stop it! Why do keep on provoking me?" He was breathing deeply and had gripped hold of her face between his hands.

"To prove a point." She brought her own hand up to cover his larger one. "All I have done is sit on your lap and talk to you. Can you imagine living around each other without satisfying _this_?" She gyrated herself hard and slowly against his arousal. His mouth became slack, eyes losing focus before he scrunched his face up as if in pain.

"What can I do? I - I want you. I know I can…relieve that tension myself but -" He opened his eyes and let them roam over her face. "It's not enough."

"We don't have to live like that Gabriel. There are other things we could do that would be acceptable in the eyes of the church."

He frowned in confusion "Like what?"

"What do you want to do to me now?"

"You know what." He scowled at her but his eyes held the beginnings of humour.

"You want to be in me?" She smiled at his expression, his face changing from stricken restraint to lust. She opened her mouth to speak again and yawn instead, right into his face. His eyes widened and he laughed. She felt his arms tighten around her and he stood up, bring her with him. The blanket fell to the ground at his feet.

"I know what you want. You've been blinking at me sleepily while trying to tempt me."

"I wasn't! I was going to propose a way that we could enjoy each other without you getting all uptight about it." He dropped her gently down onto her bed. He stood tall but Eden didn't like looking up at him so tugged him down onto his knees. She sat up and combed her fingers through his hair, trying to set it in it's former neat style. He moved his hands down and gently cupped her feet in his hands, fingers tracing her toes.

"I thought, out there, that you wouldn't let me near you after the way I behaved. You really shouldn't tease me Eden, not now."

"Why shouldn't I? I'm your betrothed."

"Because it's not the way a woman should conduct herself."

Eden felt her face twist into a grimace. "I think we have established that I'm furthest from what a lady should be."

"But you want to be. You said you wanted respect."

"And I do! But there's a world of difference between the way I behave in front of polite company and they way I act around you. No one knows Gabriel, they'll never know what we'll do." Another huge yawn racked her body and her hands pressed to her ribs with a hissed breath.

"What's wrong?"

She flapped her hands at him. "Oh, it's nothing. I just need to change." She sighed, feeling even more drowsy as she felt her soft mattress under her. She considered him gently. "Stay."

"What?" He smiled in uncertain bemusement.

"You're just as tired a I am. Only your mother knows that you're here and I can deal with anything she gets into a tizzy about. Just sleep with me, that's all." she could see his jaw clench as his eyes flickered to the bed then back to her.

"No one will know?"

"No. Just you and me."

He didn't answer, only nodded his head. She smiled and planted a quick kiss to his forehead before slipping off the bed. As he got up to sit on it, Eden undressed as quick as she could behind her screen before emerging in her night dress. His eyes swept her body with a lingering intent.

"I gave you that."

Eden brushed her hands down it and nodded. "So seeing me like this shouldn't be too shocking to your sensibilities should it?" She stood before him, placing her hands on is shoulders.

"I guess not."

Eden bent down, pressing her body against his and whispered for him to get into her bed. He stared up into her face for a long time before nodding his head. He got up and she drew back the cover. Eden got in first and patted the free space for him. He hesitated, looking uncomfortable.

"Eden, what if I hurt you again? I don't want to lose myself again."

"You won't. I can take care of myself Gabriel." He eyes dawned in understanding and he slipped in next to her, a slight smile on her face. "When I first found out about your power it was all I could think about. But now I sometimes forget about it when I look at you." He rested his head on the pillow next to hers as she moved closer to him. "I see this tiny little woman and I forget that she's got this…ocean in her. This force." His finger stroked down her nose gently as his eyes narrowed in thought. "I think I understand the way that you act. Not just different to other women but men to. You're special, you're above others. You don't have to follow the rules." He looked flushed with pleasure but his voice held traces of envy.

Eden had pressed the side of her body against his side and rested her hand against his chest as he spoke. She raised her head now with a frown when he had finished speaking. "No Gabriel, that's not right. I used to think like that and it only ruined my life. I was a terrible person, terrible, and it only brought me down to the lowest place possible. I'm not above anybody." Gabriel conformably shrugged his shoulders, a polite smile on his lips. Eden could tell he didn't agree with her. She sighed and laid her head back down onto his chest, listening to his heart beat and the way his chest rose and fell. She then draped her leg over his legs and his heart rate rocketed.

"What- what did you mean before? About acting in a way with each other that wouldn't be forbidden?"

Eden propped herself up on her elbow and rested her cheek on her palm. "Touch me and I'll tell you."

"Touch you?"

"Yes. Anywhere you like."

He licked his lips and looked down her body, pulling the cover away from her. Eden laid down flat on her back and he moved onto his side, over her. His hand hovered over her chest, following the rhythmical movement of her breath. His fingers skimmed the tip of her nipple and it became hard from his touch, clear through the white cloth. Then his large, warm hand was cupping her breast, moving to mould the underside swell and lifting it, feeling the weight of it in his palm. His eyes had been trained on to the act of his hand but now he looked into her face and saw her flushed and aroused, lips red and wet.

He lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers and feeling them part from the pressure of his tongue, he probed into her mouth as his hand squeezed her breast. The force of the kiss became more heated, their tongues moving against each other more forcefully till she was moaning deep in her throat. He kissed until he couldn't breath anymore and broke away, gasping into her hair. He nestled his face into her neck and sucked and nibbled her skin, loving the taste of her. His head moved down to lick her collar bone before stopping at her breast he had been fondling. He kissed her nipple through the fabric and then gently bit down.

"Oh lord! Oh Gabriel, please get on top of me." Her hands directed him to move above her and he followed, resting his knees either side of her hips. "Lie down flat on me. Groin to groin." He sucked in a breath and didn't move. "It will be fine Gabriel. We'll stay clothed." He laid himself down on her, legs straight between hers as she opened her thighs for him to rest between. He took his weight on his elbows and they both remained still, breath mingling together. Her breasts were pressed flat against his chest and every time she breathed in he could feel them more firmly. Her hands glided down his back, moving her hands under his body to unlace his pants. She lowered them down and then gripped his firm backside in her hands, his underwear still on and tented with his arousal. "I want you to grind and thrust your prick against my centre." He moaned something inaudible and pressed his erection against her vagina and began to rock his hips slowly. All that separated them was two thin pieces of cotton.

Eden pulled her night dress up over her knees to give her better movement as she swivelled her clit against the hard shaft thrusting against it. "See?" She breathed, "we're not having sex in the normal way. It's - it's" She broke off when she felt a flush of pleasure sparkle in her belly when he had started to move faster against her. She pressed her hands down against his ass and rested her weight on her feet and grinded her pussy harder against him, her hips beginning to jerk off the bed. She could feel how wet she was and wondered if he could feel it. "That's it Gabe - riel, don't stop. Oh Gabe."

"Uhhh, Eden I'm going to come soon." He warned her breathlessly, his mouth on her lips tremulous. His thrusts had stared to buck and he felt painfully hard, just waiting to explode. "I can feel you, so wet and soft and warm and - ahh!" He bit into his bottom lip as his hands suddenly shoved themselves under her bottom and gripped each cheek hard as he vigorously rubbed his cock, hindering her own thrusts. She whined in frustration, fingernails digging into his back as her head arched deep into her pillow.

"Oh God please, please! I need -" She was cut off by the loud cry from him as he climaxed, pumping out hard on her. Eden felt herself hit with her orgasm at the sight of his own and the friction of his cock against her throbbing arousal. She whimpered, thrusting wildly till she was left shaking weakly. He collapsed heavily on her, breathing in great gulps of air. He then raised himself up and dropped to the other side of her, boneless. He had his hands in his hair and a wide eyed wondering look as he stared up at the ceiling. He lowed his hands as he looked down at himself with a grimace.

"I should clean myself up."

"No, you can do that later." She moved over to him and he held her tight. "So…are you willing to do it that way again? Until January?" He looked down at her with a smirk. He moved to whisper in her ear.

"I'd still like to do that even when we're married." She smiled sleepily into his chest, rubbing her cheek against him.

"Good. Good night Gabe."

"Good morning more like. Sleep well Edie." She fell asleep with a pleased smile.

*

…He was painting again. Eden moved towards him, this time the floor clean but for a path made from the paint printed feet of babies. Green, red, yellow, blue, pink all colours leading her to the Painter. He was working on a huge mural, a riot of bloody reds and grass greens. But it was glossed over with a muddy looking brown, coating everything and making it hard to fathom. She narrowed her eyes at it and soon images started to appear. Screaming mouths. Dead eyes. Blood flowing like rivers. It made her feel sick so she looked away.

"Painter?" He ignored her, too engrossed on his work to notice her. Eden looked around her as a flash of white caught her eye.

A deep alcove set with paintings on the wall was at the far end of the room, overlooking the sea she could hear but not see. The one hanging closest to her was the clearest to see, the ones further down blurred and shifting constantly in their frames. The flash was a painting of her dressed in white. Bridal wear. Standing next to her Gabriel, with a face that was shining happy one moment, then scared and angry the next. Eden jerked back with a gasp when hand prints started to cover the painting, like there was an invisible child doing it's painting games on it. Eden felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. There was someone behind her.

"There's a war coming." The voice was female but indefinable beyond that. "Children are the future Eden. Children, children, childrenchildrenchildrenchilDRENCHILDRENCHILDREN -"

"CHILDREN!"

"Eden!"

Either Gabriel's cry of her name or her own shouting woke her up. She was sitting upright, eyes scrunched against the daylight, body stiff and panting. He sat up against her back, rubbing her there.

"You had another one of your nightmares?" She turned to him with a nod. "It's alright now, it's over." He drew her back down with him, hands bringing her close. "Did you dream of children?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe." She could feel herself drifting off again and fell back to sleep against him. Gabriel stayed awake, eyes frowning up at the ceiling, the start of some anxiety beginning to settle on him.


	11. Chapter 11

Eden sits in front of the mirror attached to her vanity table, adjusting the orange blossom head dressing which kept her long ivory coloured lace veil in place, boarded with a flowery motif. Virginia had commissioned the dress for her as a wedding gift and Eden was thankful for it. It was beautiful, ivory coloured satin to match her veil. She thought white or blue would be pushing her luck so settled for off white, faded but more elegant for it. It was simple, small pearl buttons running down the middle of her chest before her full skirts flowed out from her hips and pooled around her feet, the crinoline hoop giving the skirts the fullness effect.

She had a crimson corset on underneath, for Gabriel alone to see.

She stared into the mirror and felt her mind turn over. It was the same dress she had seen in the dream and Eden wondered if the dreams had effected her choice or if she would have always have chosen this material and style. If she looked down would she small hand prints staining into the fabric? Eden stared into her eyes as her hand soothingly rubbed her belly, keeping the butterflies at bay. She had awakened before the sun had risen and changed into her embroidery covered chemise then the old red corset before Virginia had come in to help her dress, covering the corset with a white camisole.

For over a month herself and Gabriel had found places to be alone, places to enjoy each other. Late at night or early morning he wanted it, the fear that they would be discovered turning into excitement at it's prospect. Eden remembered the last time they had seen each other. She had come to say goodbye for they wouldn't see each other again until they were kneeled before a priest. It had been early morning, the sun still not up and Gabriel had been working on creating a new mechanism, to make the pocket watch he was working on run more precisely. She had gone down to the kitchen for some water, unable to sleep when she saw the soft gas light glow coming from under his door. She had stepped in quietly.

"It's almost half three in the morning Gabriel." His head stayed down, too intent on his work to hear her. She could probably bang a drum next to his ear and he wouldn't blink. Eden felt herself smile mischievously. She had just finished her monthlies a few days ago and she missed him exploring her. She crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around his back, hand moving down to stimulate his penis. That got his attention as he jerked up from his hunched position with a shocked gasp.

"Eden! I didn't even hear you come in."

"Sorry for giving you a fright. You don't mind awfully do you?" She trailed her finger up and down his rising erection and playfully bit his ear. He swivelled around on his chair and spun her around and then pulled her down on his lap. He manoeuvred them back around to his work table, the small pieces on it gleaming in the light of the nearby candles. He'd been drawing up a design.

He gathered her hair up into his hand, exposing the back of her neck to him, and kissed her, sucking on the skin hard. He had left love bites everywhere she permitted him to. On her feet, her legs, her belly and breasts. But nowhere that was visible to the eye.

"Mmm, Gabe. That will leave a mark. My hair will be up for the wedding."

He murmured against her neck and pulled his mouth away. "I want to kiss you all over. You're like my muse Edie." He pointed down to the design he had been working on. "I've had this idea for years but I could never turn it into anything productive, never really wanted to. And then you came to me and all of a sudden I've got this outlet, all these ideas flowing from me." He sounded exceptionally happy and excited.

"That's fantastic Gabriel. Amazing what a little pressure-relief will do…" She moved her hand behind her and groped for him, bending over the table to do so. She deftly undid his trousers and slipped her hand in, fisting him gently. He was hardening in her hand, hot and large. Eden was yearning for him to touch her.

"Has it past?" His voice was shaky.

"Yes, yes."

With that her hand was removed from inside his trousers and she was moved back against his chest. She felt his hands cupping each breast, pressing them together before moving his hands down her sides to her thighs. His fingers hooked the material of her night dress and started to hoist it up her legs till they were bare. Ever since they had started to do this with each other she had taken to shaving her legs again, not seeing the need to do so before when she was on her own, only when she felt the need to be smooth again. Now his hands slid up her silky skin and spread her thighs apart, left hand disappearing further up. She moaned in anticipation, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

He had fingered her many times and had become amazingly skilled at it. Knowing the nuances to either give her quick release or to draw it out and give her a big climax. He seemed to consider it a failure on his part if she not only didn't orgasm but the intensity of it wasn't what she craved. He was insatiable in his need for things being just right and perfect. Eden tilted her pussy towards his fingers that had been stroking up and down her thigh teasingly, wanting them on her. He kissed her neck, turning her around slightly, as his fingers brushed her wet curls and dipped into the source of her dampness. He drew his now wet fingers up her vagina, parting her already swollen lips and skimmed around her clit to rest two fingers above it. Eden was breathy heavily, trying to keep her voice down. Virginia was asleep next door.

"Gabe. Please touch it. I want you to do it hard, I can't wait any longer." He whispered words of agreement and she felt his fingers pressing down onto her clit, making her stomach twist at the touch. She gasped as he stared to move them in a clockwise motion, hard and slow at first. Her mound bucked up into his hand, and she stared to mew quietly. His other hand moved up her body, under her night dress, and held onto her breast as she stared to rock with his administrations.

Gabriel placed his lips to her ear, speaking low. "You said you would tell me of the things you did in the past when we get married. Tell me something now." His fingers had stopped moving and Eden took a needed breath. Then he stared again, this time rubbing harder and faster.

Eden moaned as she spoke "I - ohh yes- can't tell you yet, and not about, oh - what I did with others." _You'll hate me_.

Gabriel didn't speak further as his fingers moved down to her slit and inserted two fingers into her and started to stroke the tips of them inside her. Eden issued a chocked cry and his hand covered her mouth as she stared to thrust against his fingers roughly, tightening around them. Then they were pulled out and back to rubbing her clit. Eden drew in a stifled breath between his fingers and held it as she felt her orgasm building within her. She leaned over the table and he stood up, moving the watch pieces out of the way and lowered her over it, resting against her back. "Are you going to come now?"

Eden couldn't answer, she opened her mouth against his slackening hand and only a scream was shockingly released. He clamped his hand down again and fingered her more fiercely, rubbing his own arousal against her body. She could feel her pussy starting to convulse, getting wetter, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she came. The orgasm was immense, making her legs tremble and her fingers scratch along then table surface desperately. The pit of her belly was a firework display, shooting up into every part of her body. Soon the feeling started to fade and she slumped feebly against the table, his hand moving away from her mouth so she could breathe. She turned with his help and saw his face. It was the look she loved for it was one he kept well hidden. Eyes watching from below his brows, like a predator that has just spotted something it wanted to eat. Like her orgasm it started to fade and was replaced by a triumph, just as hungrily intense.

She had finished him off there, getting on her knees, after she had recovered. At first he didn't like doing anything in his shop and especially his mother's house. He would sometimes wake her in the night and encourage to get dressed and go to her house together. Once there Eden was free to use the techniques that she had been forced to learn out of necessity. This time the experience of servicing novel and welcome. It was then, she had been pumping him dry with her hand, she realised that this would be the last time she could call that small place her home. It would belong to Gabriel, everything she owned, all her property wouldn't be hers any longer. Even her wedding ring wasn't hers. She would belong to him, in almost every sense of the word.

Eden got up from her dressing table, smoothing her hands down the soft material and waited for Virginia to collect her. She pressed a hand to her voice box and the other to her belly.


	12. Chapter 12

"Ellis."

They were seated at their wedding breakfast, Gabriel's mother and others acquainted with her were seated with them to fill up the table. Eden had no family to invite so they had to make do with the friendliest villagers. Eden had never imagined she would be given away by the local baker but she had, a kind portly man. The wedding had gone without mishap. Herself and Gabriel had met with the priest numerous times to go through the ceremony and she hoped at the time it wouldn't be as tedious as it sounded. It may have been but she was too overwhelmed to take in much of what was being said in the church. She had a piece of cake half way to her mouth when Gabriel uttered aloud her maiden name, her real one. "What about it?" She asked.

"You never told me that was your last name."

"Well I don't consider it to be any longer, especially now."

Gabriel bent down to her ear "I figured that Eden wasn't your real name but I thought McCain was." He shrugged his shoulders.

Eden didn't answer but waited for him to ask her what her first name was. She didn't know why she didn't want to tell him, it was just her boring old name but she kept it tight to her chest, it being something that no one knew. She bit into her cake and Gabriel turned from her, watching his mother gossiping to her neighbour. "Your mother looks happy."

Gabriel snorted "That is an understatement. I think this will give her something to talk about for years to come."

"She does like to gossip."

"No, more likes having people to talk to." His voice sounded soft and he looked at his mother fondly. She was still dressed in mourning black. Eden felt her heart fill and took Gabriel's hand, which was resting on top of the table. He looked down at it in surprise then up at her with a small smile, giving her fingers a squeeze. Eden made to look away but stopped for he had kept on staring at her, eyes wanting. She shifted in her seat, suddenly being hit with the irrational fear that everyone could see the what she was wearing underneath. His hand let go of hers and disappeared under the table, hidden from the small crowd that was standing before them eating. She felt his fingers digging into her thigh, her dress numbing the pressure, as he moved closer to her.

"I want to leave Eden. It's driving me crazy thinking that we have to wait until we get to the Lake House. I want you now." Nathan had kindly given then access to his summerhouse, situated on a private lake, for their honeymoon.

Eden moved her hand to brush his shoulder as she spoke low. "I know Gabriel. I want to. But look." He nodded her head to the guests. "They've almost finished eating. Once we say thank you and goodbye to them, we can go." She sat back and picked up her cake again, making quick work of it. Finally the guests finished and Eden and Gabriel stood by the door saying goodbye to them. Gabriel was offered congratulations and a hand shake from the men first while Eden was given a simple thanks last, as was the custom. Nathan Petrelli, one of the last guests, walked up to them but addressed Eden first, kissing her hand before addressing Gabriel. Eden saw him bristle and turn to talk to his mother, who had been trying to get his attention. Nathan drew Eden aside.

"It was a beautiful wedding, than you for inviting me and Mrs Petrelli."

"Of course." Eden smiled at him kindly. She looked around him for his wife, who was out of sight before moving closer, speaking low. "How are _things_?"

Nathan lost the pleasant disposition and sighed. "Not good. I take it you didn't hear? Niki had to be incarcerated. She almost killed one of her…costumers."

"She's in a mad house?!" Eden felt her stomach turn over. She had never been in one but everyone knew they were horror houses. She also knew it wasn't the first time Niki had been in one.

Nathan took her hand gently. "She is but you're not t worry. She's receiving the best possible care, I've seen to it personally." He flashed a politician's smile, which Eden thought was meant to be encouraging but was too shark like to offer comfort.

"And her daughter?"

"She's being taken care of. She's with a good family." Of course she couldn't stay with him, it would be inconceivable. Eden felt unsure as she looked at him.

"Hmm, I think you are wanted."

"Sorry?"

Nathan nodded is head behind her. "Your husband has been watching me like he wishes me six feet under the ground ever since I started talking to you."

Eden turned and sure enough Gabriel was looking at them, shoulders high and eyes fierce. She turned back to Nathan with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry I think I better go to him." He smiled at her and left with nod as she walked to her husband. Before she had even opened her mouth he had grabbed hold of her hand and started to pull her along with him. He took her to the carriage, that was wanting for them, and lifting her up into it by her waist and then got in after her. "Gabriel! I didn't even say goodbye to Virginia."

"I said we had to leave straight away or we'd miss the train."

"That's a lie."

"I don't care." He was seated opposite her, eyes leaving burning trails over her body.

"I was just talking to him Gabriel. He wanted to say goodbye."

"He spoke to you first."

"So?"

"So?!" He leaned forward, face pinched. "He knows me. He met me before you, so he should have spoke to me first. There's something you're not telling me."

"Please Gabriel, don't bring all that up now, not today!" She threw her hands up in disappear, forehead set in a frown.

He closed his eyes and drew in a calming breath. When he opened them his eyes seemed softer. "I'm sorry. I just feel wound up." His gaze became slyly salacious.

"We'll reach the train station soon and then we'll be away." She turned away from the look, not trusting herself.

They board the train and head west, gaining speed. It was three hours of torture. As soon as they found a compartment to themselves and locked it Eden had to all but fight him off, wanting to wait till they had reached the house, the bed.

"I'm not consummating our marriage on the floor of a train Gabriel." He had backed away, his hands leaving her body where they had been touching her incessantly.

"I need to do something. Please Eden?" He asked pleadingly.

"No."

He slumped back into his seat with a petulant growl. Eden stood up and paced around the tiny space before stopping in front of him with an idea. "Dance with me."

He looked up at her with a light smile "Here?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You question dancing here but want me on my back in the same place. That isn't strange at all." She said sarcastically.

"Right, right, sorry." He stood up and she settled herself against him, placing the side of her face pressed to his shoulder and her hands flat against his chest. He let the rocking motion of the train sway them as he rested his chin on top of her head. It seemed to relax him. The rhythmic sound of the train filled up the silence.

"Sarah, that's my real name." Her voice startled him out of the daze he had been in and her looked down at her wonderingly. "Plain, isn't it?"

"Is that why you changed it?"

Eden didn't answer straight away before speaking. "…I wanted a fresh start, a new life. So I decided a new name was in order."

His fingers stroked down her back, following the ridges of her corset. "That is wonderful. I've often wished, ever since I was a boy, to change my name. Just leave everything behind and start over as someone else."

She looked up at him "Like who?"

"Someone important, someone that really matters." He stared deeply into her eyes, extremely earnest. Eden brushed the tips of her fingers down his face gently.

"You are important Gabriel…Just imagine if you had gone out and got that life, we may never have met. You matter to, soo _much_ so. I love Gabriel Gray." She stood on top of his shoes and kissed his lips.

He blinked at her owlishly, like he had only seen her murkily before and was only now beginning to see her clearly. He closed his eyes tight and rocked her against him.

He dragged her by the hand past the lake, it just a blur to her eye as they ran into the house, past the startled servant and up the stairs. Every door they came to he slammed open till he found the room that had been made ready for them. Eden walked around him and sat on the end of the bed, a teasing smile on her face. "I think someone is in rush for some reason."

"Amusing. Get undressed Eden. Please." He kicking off his boots and flinging off his coat and waist coat.

She stood up and moved close to him, whispering, "I want to but I can't by myself. You'll have to help me."

He stopped unbuttoning the top of his shirt and looked down at her wedding dress in consideration. "I've never undressed anyone before"

She turned around and moved to one of the corner posts on the bed. "You can start to learn now." She placed her forehead against the wood as she felt his hands circling her waist "Untie the bodice, it's laced at the back." She felt the lace beginning to be tugged and loosened until she was able to pull the sleeves off her arms and take it off. He took it from her and laid it down neatly on the floor. He took her wrists in his hands and stretched her arms up over her head and pulled the camisole free. She heard a pleased grunt when he saw her corset and his hands twisted her around to face him.

"To think you got married with that on the whole time…" He looked bemusedly impressed. He hooked his fingers into the neckline of her chemise and exposed her breasts, which were spilling out of the top, or as much as she was able to. He bent his head down and planted quick kisses to both mounds before untying her skirt and lying that out on the floor to. More skirts were revealed. "How many do you have on?" He asked incredulously.

She smiled at him playfully but was fighting the need to scream at him to rip everything off her. "About five more."

He grumbled something and began to quickly pull them away till the hoop skirt was revealed. He looked down at it helplessly. She laughed and, taking pity on him, removed it herself. She pulled the other petticoat off her legs and was going to do the same to her bloomers before he caught her hand. He unhanded her and dropped down onto his knees and slowly pulled them down her legs, baring her skin to him finally. He pulled up the chemise and kissed her knees. Eden buried her hands in his hair and tilted his face up to her, breathing heavily down at him.

She was flattened against the post roughly, his chest crushing to hers, as his lips suddenly crushed onto hers. She kissed him back with equal fervour and began to undo his shirt, pulling it away from his shoulders.

"Now Gabriel." He nodded and unhooked her corset at the front, opening it up and throwing it away from him. Eden drew in an unhindered breath before he was leaning down and drawing up her chemise over her head, her arms raising automatically. Completely naked, all but for her boots. Gabriel took a few steps back, eyes taking in her body. The way it gleamed snowy white as she sat on the bed, arms positioned behind her so that her small breasts were thrust out. There were two spots of red blushing on each cheek.

"This is the first time I've seen you like this. You're so beautiful Eden." Her head tilted down shyly, blushing harder.

"My shoes…" He got back on his knees and pulled them off. His hands circled the back of her calves and he spread her legs apart as he stood up. She laid down on her back, legs still in his hands, watching him from below her lashes. He bent her knees till her feet were planted on the bed and she was opened to him. He stood simply staring at her, eyes taking their time as they wandered all over her. Eden moaned and thrust her hips up at him in impatience. He blinked dazedly before his hands went to unbutton his trousers where he let them fall down. He undid his drawers and stood naked before her.

It was his turn to blush as her eyes took in something she hadn't seen before. He was broad in the shoulder but seemed to taper as her eyes went down. Long and lean. And hairy, which she had found out months ago. He was embarrassed about his body when they had first started touching each other, feeling that it was unseemly and brutish. His body made her feel overwhelmingly lusty. She reached her hand out for him. "Come."

As his knees rested on the bed she pulled herself back up the bed so he had to crawl after her. He loomed over her on his hand and knees and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, flattening his body to hers. His penis was rock hard and leaking against her stomach as he kissed her gently. She could feel him shaking under her hands.

"I've made you wait too long?"

He looked down at her with glossy eyes. "It's not that. Not entirely anyway." He flushed against her cheek as he hid his face from her.

She stroked down his back softly, making him shiver. "What is it?"

His voice was muffled against her neck, lips brushing her skin. "I thought that this would be easy because I would be ready for it, prepared. I - I know what to do but I'm afraid that I'll -"

"Ssshh." She moved his head up and placed her fingertips against his lips. "You have nothing to be scared of. You're amazing Gabriel." She smiled at him tenderly. "I used to think that men didn't care about the women they took to their beds. That's all I've ever known. Husbands only care about getting themselves off, that's what I was taught."

He had stopped shuddering and was staring down at her hard. "I'll never be like that, I swear to god." Eden thought he meant more then just sex, so seriously insistent was his voice and look. She laid her lips against his and trailed her hand down his chest, over his abdomen before grasping his shaft in her hand. His hand travelled down her body, his soft touch leaving a tickling sensation in it's wake. His fingers dipped into her folds between her legs, middle finger swivelling around her clit. Eden gasped and jerked her hips when she felt his fingers enter her, stretching her walls for him.

"I want you in me, it's been such a wait."

He withdrew his fingers and she felt the tip of his cock nudge into her before changing his mind and drawing the long shaft up and down her wetness in broad strokes, lubricating himself. They both moaned softly, breath playing over their faces. He centred himself and she felt him start to penetrate her slowly, smoothly heading upwards into her. When he was immersed in her wet filled warmth, as much as he could be. He remained still, looking at her in wonder.

"Incredible. The sensation is so different to what it feels like to my fingers." He pushed a bit deeper into her and she widened her legs. "The pressure is so softly embracing." He pulled out of her slowly then back in, setting up a steady pace. Eden matched his rhythm, raising her hips up to meet his thrusts and he soon started to quicken. They kissed each other, tongues lashing, as their sweaty hips and bellies slapped together. He raised himself up on his hands and pierced his cock rapidly into her, face becoming darkly happy as he watched her struggle for release, thrashing under him. He took a hold of her left thigh and drew it back, giving him deeper access.

"Gabe! Hard, do it harder."

His face suddenly mirrored her look of gasping ecstasy as her walls flexed their muscles along his prick, wetly milking him. He sucked in a strangled cry "Ahh Eden! Clamp around me again." She did, her heart racing and breath laboured. He feel of him finally in her, the way that his hands and lips possessively roamed over her body, made her arch under him. She was seconds away from climaxing, her blood boiling and her skin burning as the electric current shot through her and she screamed out her climax. Gabriel could have fought off the tide and pull of her orgasm but he wanted to share it with her so he plunged deeper and faster till he peaked intensely, crying out her name as he came wildly within her, semen hitting the wall of her womb.

He laid his head down on her breast shakily, trying to catch his breath. A light sheen of perspiration coated their skin as the clung to one another. She brushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes and kissed him firmly on his forehead with her bruised feeling lips. She slide her hand up and down his back soothingly, listening to his breathing evening out and deepening. Soon he was asleep, their bodies curled around each other.

"I love you." She whispered sleepily. She sank into sleep and didn't hear his quiet reply.


	13. Chapter 13

Pink sunlight shines dappled through the lace curtain as Eden opens her eyes to the sound of laughter.

She raised herself up on her hand, the other pulling the sheet over breasts and looked beyond the bed. She couldn't see anyone. Gabriel was still fast asleep beside her. He had awakened her numerous times during the night and was rightly exhausted and she was quenched and dully burning between her legs. There, again the laugh; high pitched and joyful. There was a child in the room.

Eden held her breath and drew the cover back to get out. She picked up her dressing gown from where it was folded on a chair and stepped around the bed, her stomach tight with a nameless anxiety, her dreams vivid in her minds eye.

There was a little boy, she thought, playing with her wedding veil. He had placed it over his head and was concealed under it as if it were his tent. When he noticed that she was standing before him he looked up and her silently before breaking out into a fit of giggles. Eden felt herself grinning and she crouched down next to him.

"Hello, what's you name?" He didn't answer, only pulled the veil tighter against the top of his head. She tugged on her veil and he tugged back. "Where is your mommy?" That got his attention. His eyes widened and he looked at her.

"Mama?"

Eden felt herself flush at the sound and picked him up in her arms, the veil floating to the ground. His weight was comfortably plump in her arms as she bounced him. That brought back his smile. She looks back at Gabriel and sees he's still dead to the world.

"Night-night." The little voice said to his sleeping figure over her shoulder as she stepped out of the room. She switched him to rest on her hip and walked carefully down the stairs as his chubby hand pulled on her hair. She winced slightly, pulling away.

"Where is your mommy hmm?" He stared at her with clear eyes. "You don't know of course."

"Zachariah?" The voice was panicked but quite, coming from what she thought was the back of the house. Eden headed towards it and was met with a curvy woman in her thirties, attired as a maid. Eden thought she remembered her from last night as they arrived. She slumped slightly with relief at the sight of her son who stretched out his arms to her. She took him with an apologetic expression. "Oh I'm so sorry mistress. He likes to play hide and seek and I lost track him." She looked down at him and tweaked his nose affectionately. "Didn't I Zach? Little tyke!" He just giggled at her.

Eden smiled at the pair while feeling a pang that he wasn't in her arms anymore. "It's perfectly fine. He's a lovely little boy." She grinned at him, taking his small hand.

The mother's name was Audrey and she and her husband lived on the property, looking after the house when the Petrelli's were away and when they stayed. Eden joined her in the kitchen were she made her some breakfast, whisking her up some eggs. Zach sat at her feet away from the stove, sitting contently.

"He's so well behaved."

"Ah he's only being quite because you are here." She looked down at him with a small smirk. Eden bent down to him.

"May I?"

"Of course mistress."

Eden picked him up and settled him on her lap where he settled quickly. She placed a hand against his chest to keep him against her, rocking slightly. The motion soon sent him to sleep. Eden smiled down at him dreamily. She had never got a baby to sleep before.

"Eden?"

She looked up to see Gabriel coming through the door with a bemused frown, dressed in his shirt and trousers. His eyes flicked to Audrey, who curtsied to him, then back to Eden. She put a finger to lips and tilted her head down to the baby in her arms. The bemusement left him drip by drip.

"I'll serve you up some eggs sir?"

Gabriel was so intently watching Eden as he sat down that he didn't hear the blonde woman. He looked up at her with his brows raised. "Oh, sorry. Yes please." Eyes back down to the boy. He had light brown hair and he could hear him softly snoring. Eden was trying not to giggle at the noise. Audrey set out a newspaper for him to read and he thanked her, leafing through it absentmindedly. Eden was humming under her breath a lullaby, which she mixed with nonsensical cooing words as the boy slept on peacefully. Eden looked up and catches Gabriel's eye, giving him a beaming smile, face glowing. He returns it in a weak imitation. She never notices.

The land around them is beautiful but unapproachable, the freezing weather making it difficult to take walks in. The stay there for four days and when they are not sleeping, eating or otherwise occupied they make love. Or, more appropriately, fucking. He's inside her, pounding her against the mattress and she comes quickly under his constant thrusts. But she can see he's not really into it, his eyes too troubled with some inner conflict that had nothing to do with reaching his release. He had stopped worrying about satisfying her as he could make her orgasm with the simplest touch. When he comes he's taken away from his thoughts as he whimpers and growls against her neck, sated. As he pulls out the frown is back in place.

"What's wrong Gabriel!?" She asks. Voice half weary, half angry.

He looks up at the canopy of the bed as he speaks. "Do you use sponges?" He looks red in the low lamp light. Eden feels her face go numb. Spermicidal sponges.

"No. Why should I?" He doesn't answer, only clenches his jaw. She can't stand it when he ignores her. She rolls on to her side, pressing herself to him.

"I think it's a bit early to be worrying about precautions Gabriel."

His eye twitches slightly. "It's exactly the right time precisely because of that." He says softly but firmly.

Eden stares down at him, her throat feeling tight and her stomach writhing. She makes a noise of contempt and turns her back to him, curling up on her side as she pulls down her night dress from where it had been shoved up to above her breasts. Her eyes are burning as she stares at the wall and draws in a wet breath. She had started feeling overemotional since she had risen, her monthlies days away, and was trying to keep herself from giving into her disappointment. She felt the bed dip behind her as he moved over to her, hand clasping her shoulder gently. She feels his lips on the back of her neck and he gives her feather light kisses.

"I'm sorry Edie, I didn't mean to make you upset. I just don't think it would be the right time yet. We can just about fit two us into my home, doubt about anyone else." He trails his hand down the arm of her night dress and tugs on the end of it. She feels herself smile despite herself. " Please don't be angry at me." She turns over when he pulls her hip back and bends down to kiss her mouth. He pulls the night dress away from her body and slips into her as she pulls him down, making love to her gently. She rocks soothingly with his movements till she experiences a slow building, deep orgasm that rolls through her body like molten waves.

The next morning they say goodbye to the Parkman family, Audrey's cheerful husband Matthew coming to wave them off. Little Zach cries fretfully and nothing anyone does can calm him down.

"It seems I've lost my magic touch." Says Eden as he wriggles out of her arms. They had just finished their breakfast and were almost ready to depart.

"I told you miss, once he's got you under his thumb he's a little terror." Eden could start to see why Gabriel was off put as the boy started screaming piercingly. "Zachariah! You be quiet you hear?!" Audrey exhaled a tired sigh and looked at her in desperation. He had stopped yelling suddenly, even his over tired grumblings had halted. Both women turned to look down into his cot. Gabriel was bent down on his hunches and was gently stroking his index finger down the little boy's nose repeatedly. Everyone watched transfixed as Gabriel stood up and turned to them with an uncertain smile. They tiptoed out.

"How did you do that Gabe?" Eden asked in amazement.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I just thought it would calm him down." He looked away from their impressed faces embarrassed but his own face was pleasantly blushing at their praising smiles. Eden took his hand as they walked to their carriage and got in, waving goodbye and wishing luck to the couple standing by the summer house.

Their arrival back home was made with no commotion apart from Virginia assailing them with hugs and warnings to carry Eden over the threshold, it was bad luck not to. He picks her up easily and carries her inside as she laughs in his arms. Virginia had something laid out for them to eat which they devoured ravenously. Eden tells her about the Parkman's and their child. When she gets to Gabriel settling the baby to sleep Virginia brakes out in cooing noises and Eden almost joins her. He stares at them both with silent mortified hostility. Eden could have laughed at his expression but all it did was make her sad.

His mother excitedly shows them a newspaper article, an advertisement for a watch factory not far from where they were. They were interviewing candidates to replace a deceased business partner. His mother shoved it under his nose.

"See Gabriel? They're one of the biggest manufactures of watches in the north. You would be perfect!"

He stared down at the clipping with a frown. "I know who they are Ma. But I don't think that would be right for me." He pushed the paper away for him. Eden picked it up and read it quickly.

"Why not Gabriel? It seems that they are looking for someone with expertise and money. You have both." Eden said seriously. "Or do you want to work in your small shop for the rest of your life, with us living above it?" He stared at her hard but she could see he was considering her words. "I've seen your work, and I think you have explained enough to me about it for me to see you're fabulous. Write to them Gabe."

"Yes Gabriel, do it." They both smiled at him encouragingly. He stared at them both warily, feeling that they were ganging up on him. He looked at Eden.

"You're beginning to sound like my mother."

"Because I'm telling you the truth?" She leaned over the table. "Sometimes people need a little bit of prodding Gabriel."

"Which you would know all about." He shot back. Her mouth thinned with displeasure. "They would never take me up. They're a huge business and I don't have the knowledge to work in an environment like that." His voice had a whine like edge to it.

"Then why did you get the loan in the first place if not to expand? You've already started with the paper advertisements." He just shrugged his shoulders and stayed silent, avoiding her eye. Then it hit her. It wasn't the money or making a better business or even the watches that mattered to him, only what attention they brought him. She couldn't help feeling disappointed. He _was_ a brilliant horologist. "Fine, if that is the way you want it." She said in dismissive tone as she got up to help Virginia do the dishes. He sits there seething.

When they share their bed for the first time he's rough, taking her hard. She's not sure if he's still angry or not for his face is totally committed to maintaining his fast but regulated pace. When she comes he stops before resuming, thrusts even more bone rattling that she can feel herself close to another climax. She watches his eyes squeeze and he takes in a huge breath as he comes. But not inside her, pulling out at the last moment to ejaculate over her hip and side. He'd been rigidly controlling himself from the moment he started touching her.

He left her barren.


	14. Chapter 14

The cold winter snap passes into spring and before long she's been married for six months. She fills her days much as she used to, planting vegetables in the patch of garden out back, making repairs to her dresses and helping Virginia around the house. She doesn't have to strive for money anymore but she feels useless, bored with her manual routine everyday. She wonders what she thought married life would be like before it happened and she's not sure she ever did. The one thing she thought a necessity was to have a husband.

Eden saw Gabriel at the breakfast table, and during the days when he would permit her to help set out his equipment or to clean. She saw him when she laid out his food and when they sit together reading at night. She saw him in bed. But she was obscured to him. She wonders how it is possible for two people to inhabit the same place and not really be visible. Eden, feeling the sling of desperation tightening around her everyday, uses the only means that works to squeeze him out of his self seclusion. Sex and praise. Soon only one is left to her as he regulates the former, following the rhythm method of her periods so that they sleep with each other sparingly over three weeks and then vigorously in her infertile time, just before her menses.

Eden stands in his overturned shop, at first thinking there had been a break in before she realised that Gabriel was sitting crossed legged on the floor, looking through a pile of papers with worry stamped on his face. She felt herself quake despite herself. The game was up.

He looks up at her, hair a mess and dust on his knees. "I've lost something and I can't find it." He stood up to look at his work bench again, sweeping his fingers over it's bare surface before opening a desk draw. "I had it in here and I haven't taken it out. I know I haven't." He looked down at her, gnawing on his bottom lip before releasing a sigh. Eden could feel her face going red, the guilt turning into a colour and marking her out. He froze, not seeming to breath before his brows lowed in a frown. "What it is?"

Eden moved herself behind the chair between them unconsciously as she raised her palms up. "Now, you're not to get angry at me ok?"

"What did you do?" He said accusatorily.

"Promise me?" She asked firmly.

"Yes, yes I promise. Did you take the blue print?"

"I did, yes."

"Well then give it back. I don't know why you wanted to take it for. Unless you wanted to study it?" He had been slowly guiding her through the ins and outs of his profession.

Eden shook her head. "No, I didn't want to study it. And - and I don't have it anymore -"

"What?! You lost it?!" His upper body made a tilting movement towards her but his feet stayed in place. He was looking at her with accusation.

"No! I sent it with a letter to that watch company, the one that was looking for a partner." She dipped her hand into the pocket in the front of her apron, handing it out to him with a shaky grasp. She had been putting it off for months, sending the letter, wondering if it was right for her to act on his behalf when he seemed off put by the idea. Finally, because after weeks and weeks of having nothing better to do if she was honest with herself, she wrote out an anonymous letter and took a copy of the finished design he had been working on. Then their replying letter had come in the mail two days ago and she had been withholding it from Gabriel out of trepidation.

His eyes had widened in shocked disbelief, ignoring the letter outstretched to him. He doesn't speak and the silence is torturous as he just stares at her.

She waves the letter higher. "Please Gabriel? They want to see you! They were very impressed. They're even going to pay for your travelling expenses for the meeting. Just take it and look Gabriel."

"You opened it?" His voice was thick.

"Y- yes. I had to make sure what their reply was."

"To see if they had turned me down?!"

She didn't answer because that was precisely why she did it. The glow from the gas lamp caught the corner of his eye and she thought she saw water catch the light as he snatched the letter from her fingers and swept past her and out of the door. She heard the front door slamming shut.

Eden starts to feel her throat burning and her lower lip and chin wobble as she tried to repress the need to cry. She'd been crying off and on for months now and she was sick of it. But she couldn't hold it back and the tears streamed down her face as her chest was racked with sobs. She thought that she would be happy, thought that once they were married and settled all the troubles they had previously experienced would melt away. But they just seemed to be replaced with new ones. She laid her head down on the table, pressing her eyes into the crook of her arm, as the shuddering breaths whooshed in and out of grief twisted mouth. She must have fell asleep for hours, for when she awakes to the pressure of fingers on her shoulder it's dark outside. She sat up, wiping her face with her handkerchief and blew her nose. She looked around with puffy eyes.

"Eden?" He gets on his knees next to her chair, face solemn. He sees a solitary tear fall and gently wipes it away with his thumb. "I'm sorry." He sighed tiredly. "I feel like I've been saying that to you for months."

She nods her head. "You have." She lets the silence stretch before talking again. "Did you read it?" She sees the sparkle in his eye and begins to feel better.

"I did. I've been thinking it over and - I think I'll go. They wouldn't have bothered to write back if they weren't serious."

"Exactly." She offers a watery smile.

He presses himself closer to her legs. "Come with me." He stared at her hopefully.

"You can't bring your wife to a meeting like that Gabriel, it would present a strange image."

"Just stay with me? I feel like you're slipping away from me Eden. I know you are." He placed his hand against the curve of her waist, tugging her to him gently.

She looks down at his upturned face sadly. "I haven't been the one doing the pushing Gabriel."

He looks down at where his hand is resting and brushes his thumb against her stomach. "We've only been married for a few months Eden, we have the rest of our lives to have children. Why are you so eager?" He looked up at her, eyes interested.

"I know Gabriel. I know I'm being rash but I can't help the way I feel." She curled her fingers around the back of his neck. "I want to have a baby. I've never wanted something so much in my life. But I feel you'll be telling me 'just a few more years' forever. " He kept his eyes down, gazing at her lap. "It can't just be the money and the unsuitable house putting you off, what else is it Gabriel?"

He looks up at her and opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He just shakes his head, pressing his lips together.

Eden felt herself welling up. "Is it me? Because of what I used to do?" The hand on her waist tightens, fingers convulsively gripping as he raises his head.

"No, no, no." He repeated soothingly as she started to cry and he swept her off the chair to sit on his lap, rocking her against his chest until she quietens. He brushes her hair away from her sweaty face and keeps his lips against her temple, making shushing noises. "I can't do this without you Edie. You have no idea how much you matter to me, I'm - I'm _nothing_ without you."

She removes her face from where it had been pressed into his chest and looks into his eyes. He was crying. She impulsively kisses him all over his face.

"Please come?" He breathes against her lips and she bows her head in supplication.

They travel down south, next to the coast where the factory is situated. Once they had settled into the hotel that was booked for them Eden is hit with an illness, complaining of a stomach bug. She retires to her bed as Gabriel wears the carpet down with his nervous steps. She encourages him to go, telling him that she's sorry but she can't make it. He leaves, shaking with nerves. Once she's sure he's gone Eden gets up and gets dressed, feeling guilty but knowing it was for the best. He had to make an impression, without her. She believed he could do it. After hours spent knitting he returns. He bounces in on his feet, jumping to where she was seated and picks her up, swinging her around. She laughs, hitting his shoulder playfully to set her down.

"I did it! They thought the work I had done was phenomenal, that's what they said 'phenomenal!' I did it, on my own!"

"See? You didn't need me there at all! All that carrying-on before Gabriel. Honestly, you need to stop worrying about what people think all the time." He nods happily, not really hearing her.

"They want to meet me again, to sort out arrangements. But I've got the partnership!" He laughs in delighted disbelief and Eden thinks he looks beautiful. She kisses him softly which he retunes eagerly. She pulls away, breathless.

"Well done Gabe." He grins and darts forward again to kiss her. She slides her hands down his sides and hears a crackle of paper in one of his pockets. He breaks away suddenly.

"Oh yes that reminds me." He took out the paper and flicked it open for her. It was a poster. "I want to go out -"

"_You_ want to go out?" She says in mock disbelief.

"_Yeees_, _me_. It's a fun fair and I thought it would be fun to go, to celebrate. Shall we?"

"I'll get changed now." She presses a hard kiss to his mouth and twirls out of his embrace. She looked down at the poster: Bennet's Carnival.


	15. Chapter 15

The night was heated and the air full of a scintillating current. Eden could smell lightening on the still air but the skies were cloudless and spread with a blanket of stars. She stared up at it as Gabriel guided her by the hand into the large field where the Funfair was pitched up. She lowered her head down when the sounds of music, Irish fiddles, violins and drums reached to her ears and the smell of cooking meat and sugar drifted to her nose. The closer they got, the rumble of the crowd began to be more comprehensible, cries of laughter and the shouts of the carnies promoting their attractions peaked up here and there amongst the general chatter of the throng. Eden knew that she should be at ease but she had the irrational feeling that she was trespassing, walking in on something that she shouldn't.

"We can get something to eat first if you want to?" Gabriel said as the walked through the arched entrance, keeping her close to his side as they got in amongst the crowds. "Or a drink?"

"No, I'm not feeling hungry yet, maybe latter." She was looking all around her, the way that that the tents were set out and the paths through them and walked with a sure step, like it was laid out for her feet alone.

"Do you mind if I get something? I'm famished." Eden agreed and lead him to the stall that sold roast beef and ale, not wanting candyfloss. Gabriel looked down at her, one eyebrow raised. "You seem to know where you are going."

"I do seem to, don't I?" Her face was set in confusion as Gabriel went and ordered his food, asking her if she was sure she didn't want anything. She changed her mind and ordered strips of hot meat wrapped in paper, the smell of it more then anything tempting her to eat.

They walked with greasy fingers and looked into different booths where games were being played. They watched men and children play Test your Strength as they finished eating. Eden poked him to give it a go but he became as stubborn as a mull, laughing nervously as he pointed out that he was a watchmaker not a muscleman.

Eden licked on her fingers, speaking around them. "Oh, I don't now. I think you're belittling yourself." She stood on tip toe to whisper in his ear. "You certainly exercise in other ways, don't you?" She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and winked at him, grinning. Then she was stepping back, face determined as she picked up the mallet. "I bet I could do it."

Gabriel guffawed before disguising it with a cough and a wide eyed innocent expression at her sharp gaze. His look turned to one of amazement as the clang of the bell rang through the air and the gathered crowd cheered. Eden smiled sheepishly at their approval and handed back the mallet to the carnie.

"I can't believe you did that!" Gabriel breathed as they walked to look at other side booths. He took her upper arm in his hand and squeezed. "Nothing. Does your power work on inanimate objects?" He dodged out of the way from the hand slapping his own arm.

"I told you I lived on a farm. Who do you think had to heft hay barrels and buckets of feed everyday?"

"But you're so tiny!" He shook his head in disbelief, a teasing light in his eye.

"Well, I was worked hard…" Her eyes grew misty and sad with memory. Gabriel seeing this stopped with his teasing and kissed the top of her head. She leaned into him and watched people play coconut-shy, clapping with everyone else whenever the fruit was dislodged from it's perch. They trailed around until they found themselves in a section at the back of the site that had been sectioned off by a twisted velvet rope. Behind it was a big tent, black or purple she couldn't tell. The entrance was dark and Eden felt that nervous agitation again, making her stomach knot. Gabriel moved to lift the barrier up when a man walked out of the entrance. He was a tall slim black man, silent and solemn. He shook his head and pointed to a notice nailed into the wooden post the rope was attached to. Gabriel squinted at it through his glasses.

"It says that beyond are 'Attractions too aweful and wondrous to the eyes of the simple reveller.' Hmm, I think you have to be invited or pay to get in." He shrugged his shoulders and walked away. He frowned and turned back when Eden didn't move. She was staring hard at the dark man, concern written over her face. Gabriel bent down to her ear when he reached her side. "What's wrong."

She looked up at him with troubled eyes. "I tried to persuade him to let us in and it didn't work."

"You mean with your gift?"

"Yes!"

"Try again."

Eden locked her eyes to the man in the entrance till it looked like they were transfixed. _"You will let us in. Now!" _The man only straightened his back up, lips ever so slightly quirked. Eden slumped. Maybe if she just asked him nicely. "Please let us in? I want to see what's beyond." To her delight he stepped forward and lifted the rope for them, giving Eden a friendly smile as they walked through. The tent was lit with gas lamps that created pools of light up the clothed walls in the otherwise gloomily lit place. It was noisy, crammed with more people then she expected who stood, gawked and gasped at stalls set along the walkway that split into different directions to be lost in the mass of stalls and people.

Gabriel was looking back at the man that had let them in as he drew the tents flaps closed. He looked back down at Eden "I wonder why it didn't work? Your voice went deep and echoing as it does when you use it, but it did nothing."

Eden looked behind her with consideration. "It says that this is a place for the wondrous. It doesn't seem out of place to have something equally as impressive guarding it." She kept on staring back, lost in thought.

"Come on, there's things to see."

They joined the back of a crowd, mostly comprised of men. Eden stood on her tip toes and peaked around their backs to have a look. A blonde woman with curly hair and glamorous grin was sitting on a raised platform situated in the middle a shallow pool of water. Or what she thought was water because when she looked closer she could see an irradiance floating on the surface.

"Now ya'll stand back. Don't want you getting burnt do we?" The blonde laughed and laid the palms of her hands flat onto the surface of the liquid. There was a crackle and spark and then suddenly the woman was ringed with fire as her hands set light to themselves. Everyone gasped and jerked back in surprise, faces going slack with awe. Eden watched as the flames leapt up her arms and her shoulders and then she was completely bathed in fire. A throaty chuckle was emitted from the middle of the inferno. The flames shot up high into the air, just licking the canopy before the woman wiggled her body and the fire was extinguished with a puff of smoke. Everyone leaned forward to look at her but she was unharmed, just sitting contently as she had been before. "Now if that entertained you at all and would like to see more I'm sure your contributions would be much appreciated." Eden couldn't see any money dishes but she wasn't sure if that was what the woman was implying.

"That - that was…" Gabriel was looking at the woman with astonishment, lost for words. The woman laughed at his stammering.

"Oh honey you are not the first and certainly not the last to look at me like that. And you've only just started!" She winked at him before turning to stare at Eden. She seemed to start slightly before giving her a smile that was too cheery. "You've got yourself a nice gentleman there, hold on to him." Eden just nodded at her and turned on numb feeling feet to walk away from Meredith the Firestarter. She knew that grin.

Every alcove held more strange and shocking things. A man that could walk through walls, a bored looking boy that could fly, a round sweet faced man that could melt anything with just a wave of his hand. A grinning girl that could move and bend her body like a cat, jumping and balancing herself on bars. There was arousing applause and shrikes of fright around the stall holding a young woman that could change not just her entire appearance but everyone and everything around her. She thrived on their cheers, her multiple faces glowing with pride. Another girl who crackled with lightening. Joyous insanity sparkled from her eyes as she electrocuted what was placed before her.

Eden stood shaken, her mind seeming to heave and twist as it fought to piece together what was making her feel so unsettled. Gabriel saw her face ashen white and helped her look for a quite seat. The found it in an empty corner at the back, next to a beautiful girl dressed in a nuns habit. Her entire eyes were pitch black and eerie.

"What's wrong Eden?" He was flushed and tousled, his body stiffening and trembling with excitement before loosening with contentment. She had never seen him look so stimulated.

"I don't know Gabriel…" She shook her head. She was silent for awhile, looking at the nun who was sitting quietly. "Do you ever get the feeling that you've done something before, just for a few moments?"

"Yes. I think everyone does."

Her gaze fell on him. "That sensation usually fades but from the moment I stepped in here it's only grown stronger. I know this place Gabriel, and the people, but I don't know _how_." He took her hands in his gently.

"This is a strange, uncanny place Eden. Maybe it's getting to you?"

"Maybe…" She answered wearily. He helped her stand up and they looked at the both holding the nun. She was placed right at the back, as far away from them as possible. Gabriel looked down at the notice.

"She's the 'Crying nun of Venezuela. All that upset her bring instant death." He brought his face closer to the bottom of the poster, squinting his eyes at the smaller written text. " 'Death only temporary.'" He laughed in amazement. Eden tugged him away, feeling sick. Seeing that she still wasn't relaxed he found an empty looking booth. "This looks promising. 'The Finder', whatever that is."

"Molly." Eden answered as she stepped into the tent and sure enough there was a girl seated in front of a table, a large map of the world set before her. The girl smiled at her.

"I knew you were coming!" She looked at her precociously.

"Do I know you?"

Molly made to answer her but closed her mouth as a throat was cleared. She just shrugged her shoulders as a heavy set woman patted the top of her head, telling her that it was bed time. The red haired woman turned to look at them as Molly disappeared out the back.

"I hear the circus will be starting soon, in the main part of the carnival. I hear it's a great show." Knowing when they weren't welcomed Gabriel and Eden walked back down to the main entrance, Gabriel reluctantly.

"I'm sorry Gabe but I don't feel right being here." She pressed herself tighter to him, speaking above a whisper. "I feel like I'm going to be pointed out for what I am at any minute and put on display."

His face clouded over and he put a possessive arm around her. "That won't happen, everything is fine." They walked out into the night air, walking past the man stationed at the entrance without hindrance. "See? There's nothing to worry about. Like I'd let anyone take you…"

Eden had spun away from him, looking back. The was a another tall man there that she hadn't seen, white with cropped sandy blonde hair. He wore glasses like Gabriel. He was speaking to the black man but suddenly turned around to stare at her. Eden felt her stomach flip over, all the hairs on her body standing to attention. She felt like if she touched anyone she would electrocute them, like that crazy girl they had seen. Her mind suddenly started to siphon off images and visions from nothing and she remembered.

"Bennet."

The man stared at her for the longest time before looking up at Gabriel. The frown that had been marking his forehead settled and he returned his gaze to her. Eden had never had much experience with fatherly affection or kindness but she now felt that it was being beamed at her from this man she felt she knew, did know. He smiled at her kindly, proudly before turning into the tent.

"I feel like that man just gave us a blessing." Gabriel stared after him in perplexity.

"That's because he just did." She took his hand in an iron grip. "I want to go back to the hotel. I have things to tell you."

She pulled him along with her until he ceased looking behind him, when the tent was out of sight. A light breeze played through their hair and she could smell and taste the storm around them before raising her head to the dark grey clouds. Light flashed over head and they quickened their pace.


	16. Chapter 16

They make it into their hotel room, clothes soaked through from being caught in the torrential downpour that pelted down on their heads as they ran from the carriage. They stood staring at each other, breathless.

"Your dress is dripping onto the carpet. You should take it off." He took off his rain splattered glasses and set them on the night stand as he peeled off his wet coat and waist coat with a grimace. "We can put them in the bathroom to dry."

Eden remained still, jumping slightly whenever a boom of thunder rent the air. She had been bombarded with memories as they made their way back and she was overwhelmed with them. Her skin felt tight and prickly, feverishly hot. She was starting to shiver even though a sheen of light sweat was gleaming on her skin. Gabriel unlaced the bonnet string from under her chin and took it off. Her hair was sopping wet, curls weighted down and hair plastered to her forehead. He ran a hand through his own hair and sprinkled water everywhere. This seemed to bring Eden back to herself for she started to stare at him hotly, eyes taking in the way his white shirt clung to his shoulders. She laid her hands flat against his chest and scratched her nails downwards. Gabriel shivered.

"You - you were going to tell me about wh -"

"Not now, not yet." Her eyes where hooded and darkly inviting. He dropped the waistcoat that he'd been holding in his hand and kissed her, a hand cupping the back of her head. Her fingers started to undo the front of her blouse with clumsy fingers, dropping it to the ground unceremoniously. She hastily removed the other layers that were keeping her skin barred from him as he nestled his face in the curve of her neck, lips a constant pressure against her jugular. The pins and ribbons were skilfully pulled from her hair and it relaxed on to her shoulders when she shook out the curls. He pulled the shirt over his head as she worked her way out of her skirts, thankfully not as many layers in the summer months as the winter. When she stood before him in her underwear he picked her up, hand drawing her leg up around his hip as he laid them out onto the bed.

"I didn't bring any contra-"

"Sssshhh." She pressed her hand to his mouth and positioned him onto his back. She crawled down and stood on the floor, pulling the drawers down her legs and stepping out of them. She pulled the last layer over her head and stood naked. Eden heard him exhale as his eyes roved over her. She got onto her knees, straddling his legs and quickly tugged his trousers and drawers down. His erection sprang up for her, red and engorged. Eden moaned and manoeuvred herself over his hips. He sat up, the pillows at his back offering leverage, and palmed her breasts, pinching her nipples between his fingers. He bent his face down to suck and lick at her as his hand moved between her legs, fingers massaging her clit. He inserted a finger into her while the pad of his thumb stimulated the crux of her pleasure, moaning when he felt his finger bathed in her juices. He looked down at his straining erection.

"This really isn't the best time. It's out of sequence, we -ahh!" He jerked his hips when he felt her hand close around his girth and begin to pump.

"You wanted to know what I did before, when I was a whore? I could tell you things that would make you shoot into my hand." Eden watched him as the back of his head hit the headboard and bite into his lip. She wouldn't allow him to be in control tonight. She slowly circled her thumb over the head of his cock, twitching at what his own stimulations were doing to her. "When I first started I was inexperienced, green as they come. I wasn't ready for anything to be inside me." Her hand glided down his shaft with a feather light touch, making his hips jerk. "I had to prepare myself so that it wouldn't hurt to have a prick in me. The brothel obviously had other women there and they told me what I had to get, they had to do the same thing themselves while some others regretted not doing it." The words were streaming out of her mouth and part of her wasn't really interested in what she said, just as long as it distracted her. His face did that, the way his mouth opened to breathe and groan, eyes and ears eating her body and words up. She bent down to him, pumping more firmly. "You know that there are places that you can get fake cocks? I had to get one, eight inches and thick. I used to practise with it, almost every night."

"Uhh, Eden please. God…"

"Do you want me to stop telling you?

"No!" His hand had stopped rubbing her and were on her hips, fingers digging into her skin. "More, tell me more."

She smiled and resumed. "The first time was…an experience. Filled to bursting and I couldn't move it in and out as vigorously as I do to your cock. I had to get myself lubricated. I used it every night when I first started, fucking myself with it as I fingered my clitoris." He was continuously licking his lips and his hips were making uncontrolled thrusts up from the bed, wanting to be in her. She stopped stroking him and lowered herself till just the tip of him brushed her nether lips. She made small swivelling movements. "Soon I grew used to it and didn't have to use it as often. Sometimes -" She positioned him closer, dipping down so that he was almost entering her. "I would use it while the punter watch -" He cut her off with a loud guttural growl, rumbling low in his throat and pushed up into her.

"Now Eden! God, please? Pleaseplease?"

She was feeling just as stimulated as him, her skin feverish and oversensitive to touch. She placed her hand against his chest and pushed herself down on him. He penetrated up into her hard, hands forcing her down as his pelvis thrust up from the mattress. Eden took him in gratefully, throwing her head back. She didn't spend anymore time tormenting him or herself and began to rise and fall on him, watching him as he looked down to where they were joined and became even more aroused. She rides him fiercely, wanting to have that release, wanting him to have it within her. She arched her back and gyrates her hips as she places her hands on his raised knees and bucks hard. "Come Gabriel, I want you to come."

He breaths out a whimper as she starts to tighten around his thrusting shaft, her pussy squeezing him as she drew him almost all the way out of her before ramming him back in. He could feel it, the need to let go was a huge ocean wave waiting to engulf him. He watches her hands moving to grab her own breasts before sliding down the slopes of her sides to rub her clit. She starts to moan in her throat, her rhythm becoming chaotic as her eyes and mouth widen. Gabriel flips her onto her back and she holds onto him as he starts to slam his cock into her. They're both crashing and clutching at each other, a mock play of the storm raging outside. With every thrust she breaths his name louder till she's screaming it, voice growing hoarse. He rests his weight on his hands and raises himself above her, watching her writhe and come apart below him. His eyes close as she starts to clamp around him again, her orgasm moments away.

"That's it Edie, that's it. But I've got to, to -" His purring voice broke off as she placed the pads of her feet to his buttocks and her hands to his hips. She started to thrust wildly.

"Please stay in me! I want you to come with me. Oh god please!" She moves herself up to kiss his shoulder before biting into it, trying to hold off her climax before he had reached his.

"I - I can't. I - ugh, oh god Eden you shouldn't - Oh yes!" He whimpered and then yelled, trying to draw it out but she tightened around him almost unbelievably hard, not letting him go. His hand reached for her hip, as if he wants to push her away.

"Gaa! I'll use it if you want? I'll let you watch me fuck myself with it. Just come!" Her ability had been there at the back of her throat, always loose and eager when her grasp of control slips. She hears the last syllable stressed, feels it vibrating along her vocal cords then out of her mouth. Gabriel comes extremely hard, scream reaching a pitch so that he has to bite into the pillow to stop it as his body pounds against hers. She feels his seed coat the inside of her vagina, shooting up against her cervix and feels a moments elation. Then she's matching his scream, hers unhindered, as she climaxes around his pulsing cock, rippling and flowing wetly. It's so strong that her stomach muscles clamp painfully tight and her legs seize up, making her whimper. His orgasm hits him intensely so that he can't move afterwards, just lays panting into to her hair. She glides her hands down his heaving back, cradling him as her lips press to his ear, breathing raggedly.

Finally he lifts himself off her, moving on to his side beside her. She turns over to look at him. He looks troubled. "Your voice, it changed."

Eden feels a flush of shame as she stares into his eyes. "I'm sorry. I lost control of myself." She kisses his cheek. "I've been holding it back for months Gabriel, doing what you wanted and - and I can't any longer."

His eyes hold traces of not betrayal as she thought it might, but disappointment. "Will you be doing that from now on then?"

"No Gabriel! I said I was sorry. Can't you understand? I can't live with you so severely regulating yourself. And I can't do it anymore either. It's making us both miserable and I won't have it anymore."

His lips thinned while his eyes held confusion. He knew, as the husband, he was meant to be the figure of discipline in the relationship. But he couldn't do it. "I would be a terrible father Edie." He confessed in a broken voice.

She coos at him softly in discouragement as he pulls her into his arms. "You don't know that Gabriel. I have absolutely no experience with being a mother, I could be awful and hate it! But they're just irrational fears. I want to find out for myself." She hoped she would never would have to see another douche bag in her life. "I want your children, lots of them."

He smiles at her gently, hugging her closer to him. He breaths in the scent of her, stroking the leg that was placed over his hips, as they both relaxed in a comfortable silence. After half an hour he looked down at her. She was still awake, watching the rain pitter-patter against the window. "Not sleepy?"

"No, not really." She presses her face into his shoulder, kissing him there.

"Can you tell me now what happened back there?" He feels her stiffen slightly in his arms, a quick intake of breath.

"I will but I want to talk about other things first. I need to think on it more, to make sense of it."

"I see…Tell me about growing up on your farm then? You've never really mentioned it."

She raises her head and looks deeply into his eyes with her intense, sloe-eyed ones. Finally she nods, settling herself back down.

"Ok, I'll tell you about the farm. I'll start from the beginning and work myself to this point, with you."


	17. Chapter 17

"_I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses…"_

Sarah's mother liked to sing and would find that every moment was an opportune one to do so. She would sing when she rises and while making breakfast for her family. She would sing while cleaning and mending and she would sing when she had no one to hear her. Sarah's father even said that she did it in her sleep. She didn't talk but croon.

Mellifluous noises and rhythms were what Sarah had been brought up listening to and so she found herself imitating her mother's sing-song cadence. Her mother wanted her to go into the church choir like herself when she was older and Sarah was eager to. But then one day during the winter her mother lost her voice, and then her hair. Before long she was just a fleshless thin mannequin under a white sheet that clung to life. Sarah would sing to her mother but it didn't hold back the death at the door and she passed away with a sigh.

Sarah doesn't sing anymore, not freely and joyously as she once did, as she hoped to do standing in the church with her parents watching her proudly in the pews. She lilted and hummed under her breath for only herself and sharp eared people to hear. Her life became altered after her mother died, not radically because she still slept in the same bed and lived in the house with her father but the little things that Sarah didn't pay attention to before became realised and crystallised. The food wasn't right, her clothes no longer neat as her mother would have them. She had to go to bed by herself, play alone and rise herself. She had to put away her voice and utilise other parts of herself to help her father, for he would grow depressed when she spoke.

They lived on a productive farm that produced sweet corn with about fifteen or twenty hands on site to help cultivate it. But Sarah's father lost his interest in it, the death leaving a void that work wouldn't fill. He would leave the business side to his daughter, a twelve year old girl and the senior member of staff to deal with his company as he drowned himself every night in liquor at the bar. At first Sarah was at a loss of what to do, the hands would complain that they weren't getting paid on time or enough. Then the next crop came up rotten and they lost their buyers. One by one the hands left. Sarah never forgot her short stint as a unusual company director and felt herself raised above her sadness, having something to occupy her.

Then her father bought the barmaid home and Sarah was downgraded to no more then a pair of hands herself.

Sarah hummed her favourite hymn under her breath as she worked, scooping up chicken feed and filling up the two buckets. The sky was summer blue and dotted with fat clouds. The air filled with the wind ruffled sound of the corn stalks brushing together, the buzz of insects and the grainy patter of the corn hitting each other as she worked. _"And He walks with me, And He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own" _Sarah was now fifteen and lived in a state of almost total seclusion. Once her father had gotten married to Rita, Sarah had become more and more unnoticeable until she was just the girl that cooked the food and cleaned. This was not an act of generosity on her part or selflessness, she was forced to work because she was too young and cowardly to do anything else. The farm was all she knew and the vast land around her was something barren and unknowable, harsh in it's aridness.

When Rita had first moved in Sarah was not so much angry as indifferent to her, she wasn't her mother and was just another body taking up room in her home, another person to feed and cater to. She had never meet anyone who talked as much as Rita, there wouldn't go a minute before she would open her mouth and her loud, viperous voice would shatter the silence. It was in those pauses that Sarah would try to fill but she never could, it always being snatched away from her. So in the end Sarah just learned to keep her mouth shut and her discourse to herself. She didn't speak fully formed sentences anymore but made humming noises and grunts of assent or disagreement. She had been vocally stripped.

She straightened up, thrusting her hips out to either side of her body to try and release the tension in her back. Her left foot had another blister on it and she could feel on coming up on the palm of her hand. She adjusted the headscarf on top of her head and looked out over the swaying green to her house. She could just make out her father and step mother standing on the porch, gesturing wildly. Fighting again no doubt. Sarah turned away and slipped her hands into each bucket of corn, sighing as she felt the cool grain envelope her fingers and palms up to the wrist snugly.

Where once her house had been a point of meeting and church get-togethers it was now shunned. Her mother had been about to join the Mormon movement that had been sweeping Utah like wild fire but it never came to pass. Her father stopped going and so did his new wife, only going when the mood strikes to embarrass everyone around them with their pungent vapour. Sarah takes her hands out regretfully and feeds the hungry chickens, watching them scuttle about before heading back to the house. The white building wasn't very big but the closer she got to it the smaller she became, shrinking in on herself so as not to be seen. Rita was pointing at her with an accusing, rage shaking finger, a dress waving in the other.

"That stupid little fool turned my best dress red! She can't do anything, she's hopeless Jim!" Her small, pale blue eyes pinned Sarah in place. "You did it on purpose didn't you?! You're a wicked girl Sarah and spiteful! I don't have to care for you, look after you or feed you but I do! And what thanks do I get?!" She threw the dress at her from her higher perch and it landed on Sarah's head. She let in fall in the dirt. Rita's eyes widened in rage. "You pick that up! Do it!"

Sarah had lived around Rita long enough to know that to play along with her rages was to feed them. Sarah turned on her heel and stepped over the dress and made to walk away.

"Sarah Ellis! Don't you turn your back on me!" Sarah suddenly felt a sharp pain in her scalp as her hair was pulled and she was swung around. Then she was hit sharply across the face and pushed to the ground. Sarah looked up at the dark foot that was being raised to stump on her and in reflex curled into a foetal position. The blow was never delivered. Sarah heard a deep shout and then a ringing slap. She looked up from the arm covering her face and saw her father shaking his wife, face red with anger and teeth bared.

"That's it! I've had enough of your incessant voice! I can't take it anymore." He flung her away from him and just started walking, giving Sarah a fleeting glimpse before running down the lane, kicking up dust in his wake.

"You run you yellow son of a bitch! I know you'll be back by morning!" Rita looked down at Sarah who had got up on her knees and snarled at her. "This is all your fault! We would be happy if it wasn't for you!" She made to move towards her again but Sarah jumped to her feet and skidded around her, running into the field as her step-mother's bellowing sob followed her. "He'll come back!"

Sarah had stayed away for most of the night, watching the road with that mantra running through her mind: _He'll come back. He'll come back. He'll come back. _But he never did. No matter how much she prayed on her knees he didn't return.

When someone is told something day in day out, without end, then they start to believe it despite themselves. For four years Rita and Sarah lived alone together and Sarah began to slowly listen to what Rita said, to pay attention to her ramblings: she was the reason that her father left, she was the reason that they had to sale the land around them. She was most likely the reason her mother died. Why? Because she was useless. Sarah listened to this ranting and after awhile it began to be truth, it was all her fault. So she had to find a way to right it and bring her father back and house work was what she did for penance. She would reward herself: if she painted the windows and cleaned them then her father would come back. If she cleaned up Rita's dishes and made her meals then her mother would forgive her.

As the years passed, Sarah Ellis hated Rita Ellis more with every sweep of her brome and cloth. With every blister that came up on her skin she cursed her name. Everyday she wishes in her mind for Rita to die and her father to come back. The words filled her up; from the tips of her toe nails to the ends of her hair she was full to brimming with words, just waiting to be effused. And then one day, when she was sitting on her knees cleaning the hallway floor, Rita's foot kicked her polish over with a drunken swing, sending the liquid to vomit out in all directions like a flood. Sarah stared at the spreading puddle then up at her step-mother in wounded shock, rage just starting to boil.

"That will teach you for leaving out things people can trip over. Little bitch…" Rita dragged on her rolled up cigarette, drawing the smoke into her lungs as her cruel eyes look down at Sarah. She dropped ash on her with a flick of her hand.

The words burst forth up from her belly, up her throat and out of her mouth, raging and thunderous _"I WISH YOU WOULD JUST DIE!" _Hearing that huge, deep voice coming from her throat Sarah shrank back from it, from herself. She looked down and saw the cigarette fall into the pool of fluid. Every hair stood up as she raised her eyes to look at Rita's slack hand landing at her side and then her face. She looked surprised, mouth twisted slightly at the side as her body started to lean back. Sarah heard a long sigh escape her as she hit the floor with a thud.

She sat there in shock, unable to move as she heard a whoosh and felt a heat playing over her face. The floor was on fire and was about to block the entrance. She jumped up from her knees and bent over Rita, pulling on her arm and yelling at her to get up. She was meet with dead glossy eyes. The fire set light to the curtains and Sarah started to cough as the smoke was drawn up her nose. She picked her skirt up and pressed it over her face as she dashed out of the house, running as far away as she could. When she got to the road she turned back. She imagined that she could feel the heat from where she was standing for she could definitely small ash on the air. Rita was burning, she'd left Rita in there to burn. The house crackles and blazes, the dry wood catching fast and hot.

Sarah places a hand around her throat as she starts to cough again as a whiff of smoke reaches her and she suddenly feels terrified and runs. She keeps her hand around her throat as if to keep the words in and the air out, chocking on her tears as she follows the unknown path of her feet were taking.

*

"…I ran and ran. I didn't know where I was going just as long as it wasn't where I had been." Eden was sitting between Gabriel's spread legs, resting herself against his shoulder as she told him about her past. The closer she got to the fire the harder she found it to speak. Gabriel presses her tighter to him and kisses her cheek, telling her that everything is fine. "Then what did you do?"

Eden sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I fell asleep on the side of the road. I thought I was devil possessed. You've heard the sound of my voice when I use my power? It's not mine, it's someone else's. I thought I was taken over. I thought if I spoke to anyone I could kill them…but then I grew hungry and I had to ask for food at a house and I didn't kill them when I spoke." She looked him in the eye. "That's what I thought I had the power to do: to kill. I could just say die to someone and it would happen. For the longest time that's what I believed, not knowing that I could do so much more."

"Is that when you changed your name?"

"Yes, that hymn my mother used to sing to me stayed with me always. I used to think that it was about the Garden of Eden and maybe it is. I thought the name meant something new and unspoiled, I thought it brought freedom…" Eden scoffed bitterly. "It's my name and I've claimed it but Eden isn't a free place, it can't be. You can be happy in Eden but you have to lose your freedom to keep it."

"You weren't free?" He looked at her with query, not comprehending that a power could ever be a burden. Eden sighed.

"No. And I wasn't happy either. I had to live by any means necessary and I sank low to keep myself afloat."

She drew her legs up to her stomach and was silent in contemplation before she spoke again.


	18. Chapter 18

Eden McCain wasn't Sarah Ellis anymore. She wasn't afraid to open her mouth and let her voice be heard. She goes up and speaks to total strangers just to have someone to hear her. She would walk forthrightly, chest thrust out and chin in the air. She wasn't Sarah Mouse anymore but Eden Lion. And she hunted her prey when all else failed.

Eden thought she was cursed but she wasn't. She's been blessed with His voice. It's something terrible and she accepts it as her penance, knowing that it is within her but must never be uttered. She's different to everyone else, no one has this thing she has, no one else is this special.

She had been nineteen when she ran away from home, sleeping rough and stealing food as she headed in no particular direction, just as long as it was out of Utah. She headed east, hitching rides on steam trains and in peoples wagons. Some of the people that allowed her to hitch with them did so generously, even though she had no way to pay them but with what she could do to help. Sometimes they pass her by and she has to sleep alone. As the seasons turned cold she found that the makeshift tent and provisions she had collected for herself were not going to be adequate, she needed to travel with a roof over her head. She had no fixed abode and no destination to get to, she was adrift and unchained.

The first time she serviced someone was to get a lift to New York, the man first saying no as she had no money to offer him. It was a freezing night and Eden couldn't stay out another in it. She had pressed herself to him, her words soft and promising. She could see the change in his face and felt a momentary stab of surprise that she had generated it. That was when she had the first glimmers towards her own sexuality. It was something that she could project onto herself, accentuate it outwards. She had relished the power that this simple source of inner fire could give her. She could make men grovel at her feet for something as insignificant as placing your hand or mouth around the thing that drove and strove these men, men that seemed to sniff her out.

She had whispered her promises in his ear, tone low and breathy and he had jumped at her intentions. She had seen a penis before but only at a distance and always with the accompanying feeling of humour and the fear that she was doing wrong by looking. It had made her feel tingly and hot all over and she feels something like it then, when she had taken his shaft in her hand. It was something new and Eden was all about new things to experience. She had stroked him, watching for the change in his person as she did it. A part of her was detached, critically learning from the experience and storing it away. When he had spurted over her hand, white and warm she had grimaced slightly and sat back. The man had got himself together and carried on driving, urging the horses to move faster. Eden saw that he was ashamed and was possibly still keeping her with him out of the need to atone. She stored that away to, another thing that she could create and control.

Once in the city she sees that she can't just hop onto someone's carriage and expect them to adopt her for a short time until she finds another. In this place she is stationary and without income or friends. She walks around the bustling streets, taking in the places and people. She soon finds what she is looking for. A bookshop. She was bright and new and everything was open to her now, what she had to do to get here was all in the past. She had gone there hoping to dazzle them, they would see her and she would be snapped up with a click of her fingers. But they had laughed at her, at a woman coming in and asking for a job. She wasn't an idiot, she knew it was unlikely for them to take a girl up but she was so sure she could do it. She had to do it otherwise she might as well go back to that burnt house and dry up with it. She tried everywhere she could think of, her feet weary with walking and her voice hoarse with promoting herself. Finally she had rested on a street corner when night had fallen, pulling a shall tighter around her shaking shoulders.

She goes to tavern with the money she can spare and gets drunk for the first time. She thrives on the way it makes her even more someone else, further from the girl choking herself outside the burning house. The hot, pale gold sweetness effuses her and makes her free and uninhibited. The men flock to her like moths, fluttering around her aura and feeding it back to her. She watches them, considering.

"You have their dicks in your hand. Every. Single. One. Of. Them." The voice is slurred and amused. Eden turns to see a pale beautiful woman seated next to her. She's dressed in red and faded purple and her blonde hair it pined up to expose as much neck and chest as possible. The corner of her mouth curls up at the edge, watching the men buy Eden more drinks. "I think they'll start begging next. You could make a lot of money…"

"Money?" It hadn't really entered her mind.

"Yes, money. Honey you don't give it away for free. Not ever." Her eyes narrowed before she offered her hand, a broad smile forming. "I'm Nicole - Niki."

She took her hand and shook. "Eden McCain."

"That's a pretty name."

"Thank you, it's what I live by."

Niki frowned at her. "What, a bible story about a garden?"

Eden leaned forward "A place of freedom to do as I wish in. It's a garden of pleasure."

The blonde woman smiled less, eyes taking in her face. "How old are you? You don't look no more then twenty. Do you have family here?"

Eden felt her hackles rise. "What does age matter? That won't bar me. I got here today, on my own initiative. Family isn't relevant anymore." She straightened in her seat.

"So what do you do now? How are you going to live?"

Eden faltered, the feeling of uncertainty breaking through the numbing fog of drink and her own pride. "I was going to get a job, in a shop. I tried everywhere but they won't hire a woman, especially one with no references." She slumped in her chair, taking a swallow of rum.

Niki didn't answer her for a long time, turning to watch the a piano player, forehead wrinkled. Finally she turned back to her when the music finished. "You could come back with me? It's probably going to be snowing tonight and I don't think you want out in that." Eden shock her head and Niki hesitated again before leaning closer and speaking low. "You know what I am, don't you?"

Eden had guessed. A woman dressed like Niki, in place like this on her own could only be one thing. "Yes." She said softly. The blonde dipped her head and then stood up.

"You coming?" She waited for Eden to stand, who sat for a few moments, face betraying a flush of uncertainty. She couldn't stay here, or out there, on her own. She knew where she was going but that didn't mean she had to sink as low as that forever. She could stay there until the weather turned and then she could move on.

"Lets go"

*

But she didn't leave when the winter turned into spring, or when the first waves of summer heat settled over the city. Oh she had tried, when she had seen the doors and the women behind them, broken and numb. But she always turned back. It was a place that she had made friends, women that didn't shout and treat her like dirt. In Niki she had a friend, for the first time in her life. They would go out together and drink the punters under the table, enabling each other. There was a communal feel about the place they called the Red House. She hadn't lost her virginity to a client but in a drunken fumble behind the bar. She couldn't remember much about it, only the pain mixed with startlement at a completely new sensation. Eden spent almost everyday in a drunken stupor for months on end.

One day, when the streets bake with the heat and gets into the blood, someone had tried to rape Niki. The man had his arms pulled out of their sockets before being beaten into a horrible, bloody pulp. Niki didn't sleep with the men, only danced for them. The reason that she hadn't gone to prison or been shot on sight, like some monstrous freak, was because of Eden.

She had walked up to the House that day, thinking about getting a drink when she noticed that all of the women and some quickly disappearing clients were milling out on the street. Her first thought had been fire but going closer she couldn't smell anything on the air. Maybe the police had finally broken their mysterious policy of no interference and raided the place. This became an almost certainty when she saw police standing outside, talking to the crowd.

Suddenly there was a piercing cry and suddenly Eden saw a body sailing over her head, just caught a glimpse of a startled face before he hit the ground behind her with a crunch. She ran and saw Niki in the middle of the crowd, eyes flashing and her face twisted into a snarl. She was covered in blood. Her wolverine eyes caught sight of Eden and she seemed to twitch, shaking her head like a wet dog. Then she was crying, palms up before her in supplication.

"Please, please help me. I didn't do it. Oh god, oh god…" Seeing that she seemed to have eased off the remaining police approached her warily, eyes spooked.

"What's going on? Niki? Tell me what has happen?!"

"I think they want to arrest me. Oh please don't let them, I can't go back to that place, not ever again." She meant the mad house. Eden could see the fear rising and rising in her blue eyes until that steely shine seemed to replace it again.

She wouldn't kill anyone, she couldn't. But Eden couldn't allow them to take her, she was her only friend and she was all she had in this place. She felt that familiar tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach as she darted forward, standing between the police and Niki. She opened her mouth and let her voice boom out, powering it with all the fear and deeply suppressed disgust that she had bottled within herself. She spoke up, not expecting to be heard and obeyed but did so anyway.

"_STOP! LEAVE HER ALONE AND GO AWAY!"_ The people closer to her all frowned, eyes blinking slowly. And then suddenly they were turning around, walking away with faces slightly confused. The ones further back were still there so Eden shouted at them with her Voice until they to left.

She had grabbed Niki and pushed her into the House, telling her to clean up. They had to leave, she told the police to go but they could come back. Eden was an accomplice, she had intercepted an arrest. She didn't even know if Niki had done it.

They had stayed there until nightfall and then escaped in the cover of darkness, jumping onto a freight train and travelled north. Eden was back to what she had to do months ago, living off the land and the people on it. Niki was silent, that fiery zest that she portrayed was gone. If it had ever been real in the first place…

*

They had been camping out in a field when a wagon had set up next to them. Eden gone over to see if they could trade anything.

A pretty, bubbly red head and a little, silent girl were sitting around a small campfire, cooking a rabbit over it. The girl had been watching her approach and neither of them seemed surprised to see her.

"Hi, little Molly here knew you were coming. I think she's got a hounds nose she's so sharp. Ain't you sweetie?" Molly smiled softly at her. The older girl looked up at Eden kindly. "Do you have food? We could share?"

"How about swap? We do need food. Is there anything we could give you?" Eden could strip their campsite, take their wagon and leave them there, unaware until someone found them. But the womantalking to her was smiling so cheerily and speaking in such a pleasant tone that Eden felt ashamed to even contemplate it.

"Oh that's a good idea! I'm not sure, I pretty much know what we have and don't…Hey, why don't you and your friend come and join us?"

"Thank you." It would be nice to have others to talk to. "I'm Eden McCain."

The red head jumped up to her feet and shook her hand. "I'm Charlene Andrews, but everyone calls me Charlie."

Eden smiled at her, feeling lighter for the first time in months.


	19. Chapter 19

The newly formed foursome stuck together, helping each other to survive and reach their destination. Because for the first time Eden was heading in a set direction, working everyday to get to it with Charlie and Molly at the head.

"You see, Molly is special. I was only half joking about her having a keen sense of smell. It's more then that." Charlie had told Eden who was sitting up front with her as Charlie drove the horses over the grass. "She can find people, you give her a name and she can point on a map and tell you where they are."

Eden at first found it jarring to come to terms with the fact that there was others like her but after she did she had never felt such a connection. These were people that understood, who's lives had been upturned. She had looked at Charlie's glowing face as she looked out over the horizon, seeing something that Eden couldn't. "Who is she looking for?"

"The Carnival." Was the short reply.

"And what is that?"

"Oh sweetie. It's like some place in a fairy tale. It's a travelling city filled with people like you." Her smile stretched over her face, butter soft. "The love of my life is there and that's where I need to be." She faced forward with a set, happy determination.

"Who's that?" Eden could feel the girl's excitement and hope soaking into her and making her wish to see this thing and the inhabitants.

"Hiro. He came over from Japan and travelled with the Circus, looking for a sword. You see one day that Carnival pitched up in my town and I went. I thought it would just be tigers and clowns and I was bouncing just to see that." She laughed. "Dear lord the fright I got! One moment I was walking along, minding my own business and the next this little man was falling at my feet. He got up, bowing to me and then snap." She clicked her fingers. "He was gone, right out of the air. I thought I had seen a fairy or something like that you know? But then just as suddenly he appeared again, to apologise for scaring me. I about fainted away!"

Eden listened carefully as Charlie explained the night Hiro invited her into the special tent, filled with special people. Eden listened with wonder when she hears of all the amazing people living in there. But mostly she talked of Hiro, and his boyish face.

"After that night I knew he was the one for me." She had fallen in love and he loved her. The next week the fair had moved on with out her knowing and Charlie had to make a decision. Stay in Texas where she was content but alone or go after the Carnival. "Well that decision was set in stone when I met Molly." She leaned closer, keeping her voice down as the girl slept curled beside Niki in the back. "Her parents had both died of a fever. I found her or she found me, I don't know. She wouldn't speak but she unfortunately had to be picked up by me and I can run my mouth off like no one else! I told her where I was going and she just looked at the map and pointed to where my Hiro was. The first words she said to me were ' He jumps around a lot.' Truer words have never been spoken!"

When Eden had tentatively asked if she had a power she had scoffed, saying that if an elephant's memory was a power then that was it.

They travelled further, Molly getting more talkative the closer they got to the place she thought the Carnival was. Eden had tried to give up drinking, had even stopped for a few weeks before she had walked into a tavern they were near for no more reason then she wanted to. Molly had come to find her and she helped her home, holding up her intoxicated body. Eden had confessed to Charlie and promised to never let it happen again. She stays in the wagon whenever they pass through a town. Before long they didn't need to follow Molly's direction but the posters that would be stuck to tress and the inside of windows. Eden had ran back, a poster clutched in her hand, the delighted news that the fair was about the pitch up not a week from then. Charlie was asleep on the front seat.

"Charlie! Look! It's here, we've finally caught them up!" She stepped up onto the wagon and touched her shoulder. She felt an unexplained fright and her face felt frozen in place. Charlie didn't move. Eden shock her harder and the way her head flopped made her stomach flip and feel queasy, hair standing on end. Her voice sounded small and strained as she spoke the redhead's name to her for the last time. "Charlie?"

They buried her on top of a hill, next to an oak tree and a cloudless sky.

*

When the tents came into their sights it didn't seem as exciting as they hoped it would be. A dull anti-climaxe. It was a place they all needed to be but the light that had been guiding them and picking them up was gone. Eden didn't look at the stalls, didn't look at the people until she spotted the two Japanese men, standing next to a tall older man. Eden had taken a breath and introduced herself to the smallest one there. She had started to cry even before she could tell him, seeing his face light up when she mentioned Charlie's name. Then he just became still as the dreaded words left her and she had instinctively pulled him into her arms. He had looked at her with dead wet eyes and a shaking thin mouth before he had disappeared in front of her. She had given the directions to Charlie's grave in broken sobs to Hiro's friend who left, face sad.

Eden had been left crying amongst the excitement of the exhibition, a sole pocket of grey cloud in a summer sky. She had slumped against a back and was pulled into a warm hug. A man's soothing, deep calm voice whispered to her that everything would be ok, she's home now. That was her first introduction to Noah Bennet, the ring leader.

And from that point she was never very far from him. He seemed to have adopted her on the spot, showing her a fatherly affection from the fathomless well inside him while training her, teaching her. It was Bennet that taught her to govern her power, to control it and not the other way around. It wasn't totally altruistic on his part, she was staying in his nomad home and that didn't come free. She was asked to use her gift and she did. She soon learned that there was two faces to the Carnival: one where she was on display, wowing the intended customers to give them money, for her own livelihood and other things that Eden had no clue about. The other was collecting and recruitment.

"You see Eden what we do here isn't really about putting you on display." Bennet's mouth had thinned in disgust before he resumed. "It's about helping the good of mankind. There are some out there that have wild and uncontrolled powers that are more a curse then a gift. In most cases we hopefully help them to control it and keep them safe from themselves and others. Because that's what we want, to offer sanctuary."

"And to the ones that can't?"

"Then they are dealt with accordingly." His voice was stone cold but then his face had softened. "You've been with us months now. When you arrived here you were hopeless and without purpose. I think, if you'll allow me to say, that you've found a new meaning to your life? Because Eden you are indispensable to us, so much so. Like Maya and her brother. If you hadn't helped them who knows the destruction that could have been unleashed." It was true. She had found them and helped Maya control her gift. Her brother had finally found himself unshackled from his sister and free. It had been her first success. Eden had filled herself with Bennet's words, taking them and driving them to keep her up. She had meaning now and someone that respected her and she wasn't going to jeopardise it.

Eden, when she wasn't helping Bennet and the silent Haitian find others like herself, was performing her stage act. She was a rousing success, as was Niki with her Strong Woman act. Eden was so much so that she started to attract regulars, mysterious seemingly important people from all over. They watched her with a greedy interest. But one more then any other because for all intents and purpose she belonged to her, everyone did. But Eden wasn't to learn about Angela Petrelli yet, she was just this queenly figure that others whispered about in revered tones. And Eden had impressed her.

She had been trained well and she felt the words not just in her any longer but all around her, spreading out from her like webs and touching everything. She saw it, the vowels and guttural stops, the lilts and alliteration forming into something real and powerful. Valleys and plains everywhere, a new dark land for her to explore and control.

*

"But you didn't stay there? How did you end up in my village?" Gabriel's voice trailed across the sound of the train wheels.

Eden looked up at his face, thinking hard. "It's all jumbled in my head, all these memories of the Carnival, I didn't have them before. Before I thought I had spent a year in the Red House. I thought after Niki and myself had run away we simply went back. Niki is there now, or she was." She moved herself into the circle of his arm. "I have two sets of memories Gabriel and one of them is not real."

"What did you think before? What did you remember?"

"I remember staying in the Red House as Niki had her baby… Yes that's why we went back, she was pregnant. After she had it I left, tired of that house and seeing such a new born in it. Niki wouldn't leave but I couldn't stay. I found your village and just started living in the cottage, after the previous owner had died."

"When you moved in everyone wondered how you got the old place, where you got the money from."

Eden looked at him with a sense of helplessness. "I don't know Gabriel. I don't pay anyone for it, it's just mine." Her eyes moved back and forth with a nervous fervency and Gabriel kissed her, easing her down again with his hand, making circles on her back.

"Don't worry yourself. All that is in the past. But -" His eyes gleamed with excitement. "We could always look for the Carnival, find out answers?"

Eden knew that it was a sensible plan but something made her shake her head. She didn't want to travel, she needed to stay and nest in one place. "I have you. I don't need to go anywhere." She rested her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes.


	20. Chapter 20

The winter of 1861 rolls in and with it the start of the Civil War. News of battles, death and victory met the peoples of the village and they eat it up hungrily. At first the men had volunteered in their thousands, eager to serve their country and newly elected president. But as another year rolled by and then another the enthusiasm that they could win against the south waned with every report of loss of life. But those reports were just something that was happening in another place, making an impression but not governing the day to day life of unaffected people.

Eden wakes him with teasing kisses, pulling the sheet down as she pressed her lips his chest, his abdomen. She feels him stir and he look down at her in sleepy bemusement. For the last two years they had relaxed with into the grove that they had made together. The only irritation being Eden's hope and disappointment at her lack of conceiving and Gabriel's fear and then relief when it didn't happen. He had given into her wishes, sleeping with her as she wished but she wasn't satisfied. She had been aggravated by that nag and Gabriel felt guilty for thanking god it wasn't replaced with anything he feared. Like now.

"Any reason why you're down there? Not that I'm complaining…"

She just smiled and dipped her hand under the sheet covering his hips and took him in hand. She kissed his stomach again, touch tickling. "I just wanted to say thank you…" Her finger slowly circled around his head and she stroked him into hardness.

"Wh - what for?" He got up on his elbows and watched her, feelings of pleasure mixing with apprehension. Her hand stopped and she looked up at him. Her eyes were nervous, cheeks red but she couldn't stop that ecstatic smile from appearing. Her hand squeezed convulsively and Gabriel jerked and moaned softly.

"You know for what." Neither of them spoke up again. Gabriel fell back onto his pillow as she lowered herself down, her mouth, lips and tongue replacing her hand and fingers. He grips the sheet below him in tight fists and closes his eyes, trying to focus on the sucking and licking sensations she was giving him but he couldn't. She was working him into a frenzy and the anxiety that he had been keeping bottled inside was about to be released.

"You're pregnant? After all this time?" Her lips paused on him at the sound of his voice before swallowing him, taking him into her throat. She just wanted him happy, just wanted him to be happy for both of them. But she then felt his hands on her forearms and she was pulled off and over turned onto her back. He was breathing hard, erection pressing into her belly as his eyes looked at her with a burning intensity.

"Yes Gabriel."

He couldn't look at her. He had been living with the foolish hope that if it hadn't happened after they had stopped taking precautions then he was safe. He was very, very wrong. "How far along?" He talked to her throat.

"I missed my monthly last week. You know I'm regular as clock work." She was rubbing his back, a tremble in her voice. "Please look at me Gabe…Gabriel?"

He looked up at her, lost. "I hoped, I hoped that…" He trailed off unable to speak when she was looking at him with so much worry and upset. He kissed her, whispering hurried apologies as he mirrored her intentions from earlier and moved down her naked body. She was stiff with tension, had been all along and he took her thighs in his hands as he spread her legs, kissing the inside and digging his thumbs in with a gently firmness, loosening her muscles. He moved his face between her legs and applied his tongue to her, making her shudder and moan his name in pleasure with every lick and twirl until she was arching off the bed, hand slapping over her own mouth to stifle her shouts. She had guided him into her afterwards and he came quickly with a unavoidable feeling that he shouldn't be in her, not anymore.

The summer was here and the it only elevated the tension, not just in their home but all over the country. But Gabriel couldn't think of that, not when he had Eden. He couldn't take his eyes off her, her belly in particular watching for the tell-tell rounding but she remained flat. But she still maintained that she was pregnant. Another month was almost at an end and he had to accept the fact that he was going to be a father. Now that it was an actual fact he feels himself acting differently then he thought he would. On one hand he was at a loss of how to move around her or even touch her anymore. She was evolved into something else that wasn't solely focused on him anymore, or even herself. She was preoccupied absolutely on the life growing inside her, nursing it to be born while Gabriel was terrified of it happening.

But knowing that she was carrying his son or daughter made him extra watchful, worrying that something would happen to her. He watched what she ate, what she wore and where she walked. Eden grew increasingly annoyed at his conflicting intentions towards her, pulling away from her while treating her like some priceless, precious trinket that could shatter at any minute unless treated with care. He touched her with only light watchmaker fingertips.

"You don't touch me anymore." They're in bed, trying to get to sleep in the sticky heat.

Gabriel turned his face to her. "I do, I'm touching you now." He had his fingers on her belly, resting gently.

"No you're not, not really. You don't hold me properly anymore; I get the feeling of your finger-pads brushing on my skin put it's insubstantial. I want you to make love to me but you won't. I - I don't think I'm showing very much, just a little. Do I put you off? D-disgust you?" Her eyes where tear rimmed and she was trying to hold it in.

"You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen, that will never change." He bent over her and pressed soft kisses to her cheek, repeatedly.

"Then why won't you touch me!?"

"Because I don't feel that you're mine anymore. I've been replaced." He hadn't even intended to say it but it escaped him, the thing that had been on his mind, eating away at him.

"Gabriel…" She stared at him with a frown. "This is your child to, it's not a thing that is just exclusive to me. Having it won't change my feelings towards you." She curled herself around him and he drew her closer, curling his own body around hers. "I love you…"

Gabriel felt his heart expand. Every time she said those words to him he just soaked it up like sunshine. He bent down and kissed her rounding belly with a firm kiss. This seemed to placate her and she fell asleep with a troubled free face. He settled around her again and joined her in rest.

*

"…Isaac. Please…Isaac, show me it. Oh…yessss. Mmm."

Gabriel had those words running through his mind for days, collecting them every night to brood on after. She had been talking in her sleep. _Moaning_ in her sleep another man's name. In the daylight hours she goes around like nothing was happening, just accepting his sulky, frosty attitude as another of his turns. But her emotions grew more volatile as the weeks past and she found it best to just leave him be if he was in a nervous worry and likely to anger.

Gabriel saw this as justification that she was growing tired of him and sunk deeper into his own insecurities. After a particularly angry argument about Eden going out to help his mother in the garden with the planting Gabriel was left sitting alone in the kitchen, shoulders knotted with tension and breathing laboured with the inability to stop himself weeping. He covered his face with his hands when Virginia stepped inside.

"Gabriel? What's the matter?" She made to place her arms around him but he swivelled in his seat away from her. She just set her mouth in a line and sat down next to him. Even though she found it all but impossible to do so, she knew when to back off, or at least she was trying to. "What's gotten you upset my angel?"

Her soft voice made him turn to her tearfully. "Oh you know what mom."

"Eden? Gabriel…you've got to take care of her, she's so lucky to have someone like you and don't forget that she knows it. Having a baby changes you Gabriel." Her eyes lit up. "Like you, when I knew I was going to-"

"Please, I can't handle hearing about my birth again." He sat back in his chair, sniffing and miserable. "I know that having a baby is life changing and the way she acts now won't last." He suddenly eyes his mother quickly. "Hopefully." He whispered under his breath.

She carries on staring at him, wanting to speak, to prod, but she stayed silent, waiting. Gabriel looked down at the wedding band still on her finger, shining dully he thought. He looked back up. "Why do you still wear that?" His mother looks down at the ring in surprise then back up at him.

"It's stuck Gabriel."

"You never told me that."

Virginia smiled gently. "You never asked." She didn't ask for it to be removed as he probably could do and he didn't offer. He let the silence stretch, the need to speak, to off load growing strong with every passing tick of the clock hand.

"I - I'm scared Ma. It's not Eden I'm really upset at, well not much." Isaac flashed through his mind like a stab. "I sometimes think that the baby isn't mine and that would be ok because the alternative…It's me, I think something bad will happen when the baby is born, something will change and it will be me." He was speaking faster now, powered by everything that had been troubling him since her first started sleeping with Eden. "I've always wanted to be someone else, someone with importance, I just wanted to change. And I think I will, I know I will when the baby is born. I'll become a monster mom." He looked at her fearfully. "I'll become like him and I'll just hurt everything I touch." His eyes pinned themselves to her wedding ring. "I don't want to be that."

His mother leaned forward and cupped his face in her worn hands, tilting his face up. She brushed the fingers of one hand down his cheek like she was touching butterfly wings. "He's dead Gabriel, dead and not coming back. You're not your father and never could be. You're my special boy and you'd never hurt anyone or anything."

He stared at her as his eyes grew wet. He took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers tight. "I love her so much. I feel like I could untether from the ground and I'll just float when she looks at me. But I can't say it: I love you, I love you, I love you. Because when I do she'll stop pretending. Because how can she love me? I can't understand why she wants to stay with me, from the first moment we meet she wanted to be with me…"

"Why wouldn't she want to be with you? You're a good person Gabriel and you'll be a good father. She loves you, I can see it, and that's all that matters. And you are a success Gabriel! The work you do with that watch factory has been indispensable to the war effort." It was true, he had helped invent more precise railroad timers that spread across America.

"She's cheating on me Ma." His mother sat back with a flick her hanky at him.

"With who Gabriel? You haven't let her set ten paces from the house since she became pregnant." Virginia stood and bent down to kiss the top of is head. "You have to take care of her Gabriel. She's your responsibility now." His mother always had the knack of turning Eden into some abused kitten that Gabriel had adopted or a doll that he had fixed back together again and taken home to keep.

She bustled out into the garden and Gabriel looked down at the paper. He felt somewhat better but the nagging fear and paranoia were still there.

The president had called up for drafts to fight in the war. Men aged from eighteen to thirty.


	21. Chapter 21

She had been dreaming every night. For months images of the painter, who she knew was called Isaac, beset her and hovered around her in her waking moments. They meant something, the paintings hinting at something. Because two to things had come true: her marriage and the war.

She was almost five months along now and had been almost flat until recently. For the first four she didn't feel pregnant, after the first flush of joy at expecting had passed she had waited for it to return. She watched her stomach everyday, looking for the change ad gradually it did, belly growing into a small bump. Virginia had told her that it was nothing to worry about, lots of women didn't show until further along. The baby was something that she couldn't stop thinking about besides the dreams because she couldn't think on Gabriel for to long without riling herself up. She was extra irritable and he just seemed to heighten it. And with good reason, he was being insufferable; she could walk anywhere or even sit in peace without him either edging away or in contrast fussing over her. The latter was more acceptable then the former but she was starting to find his behaviour cloying. She had to repeatedly tell herself that it would pass, it would pass when the baby was born.

She wanted room to breath by herself without any aggravating interferences, even if it was just for an hours stroll. It was a Saturday night and Eden was sitting in Virginia's kitchen, feet tapping on the stone floor as her eye caught the newspaper, a section on local painters. There was a section dedicated to the recently deceased of note: Isaac Mendez.

Eden crunched the paper between her hands, staring at the name. Her eyes then caught sight of one of his featured paintings. She hadn't seen it before but definitely recognised the style. She had found the man from her dream and he was dead. She felt the excitement fade and she sat back and put the paper down. For months she had been dreaming of him and know he was unreachable; the strange dreams and what ever they had been trying to tell her could have had an outcome but it was gone from her just as quickly. She picked it up again and she noticed that there was an address to his home where he kept his studio: The Palace.

Eden had been clamed up in the house for months feeling useless but now she had something, something to not only take her outside but possibly answers. She rose from the chair in determination and climbed the stairs to the bedroom and got ready to pack. She was going and Gabriel wasn't going to stop her this time.

*

"Eden?" Gabriel stood at the foot of the stair calling up them. When she didn't answer he called her louder "The dinners been set out…" Still nothing. He frowned and climbed the stairs.

She was sitting on their bed with her bonnet on and travelling bag at her feet, she was just putting on her gloves when he walked in. At the sight of her Gabriel felt his chest tighten and his hands sweat.

"I'm going out Gabriel."

"With your bag packed?" She rose, keeping her eyes down. "Look at me!"

"I knew I should have just left a note…" She bent to pick up her bag but he darted forward at pulled it away from her. She rose, arms crossed over her chest. "Give it back."

"No, not until you tell me where you are going and why." His body was so stiff with tension he could feel himself cracking with it, jaw clenched painfully tight. She didn't answer but the flush of red over her face told him enough.

"I'm tired of being cooped up all the time Gabriel. I want to just go out."

"You can go out, I promise when ever you want. Just please don't take this with you."

She moved closer to him, looking into his tense face. "And why shouldn't I?"

"Because with it I don't think you'll come back." His hand made a possessive motion toward her but he lowered it to ring the handle of her bag.

She looked at him sadly. "Of course I'm coming back Gabriel, why would you think that?" Just as quickly as the sadness appeared it was replaced with anger. "You don't trust me all do you?"

"What am I meant to think? You've been avoiding me for weeks. You've been shouting at me when I haven't done anything and now you're going somewhere and won't tell me why or where!"

"_I've_ been avoiding you!?" She laughed bitterly. "If I have Gabriel it's only been in response to the way that you have been treating me!" She bent down and tried to tug her bag away. He placed the heel of his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back.

"I haven't done anything! I'm not the one saying another man's name in our bed!"

She gasped and took a step back. "…What did you hear?"

"Who is he?" His words shook with angry and a barely concealed fear.

She placed her hand to her forehead and rubbed. "I've been dreaming about him…" She watched him puff up in affront and felt her skin prickle. "What does it matter? He's nothing now. I could profess my innocence and you'll just ignore it. Even now you don't like me to talk about Nathan."

He remained silent, unable to speak. She was just digging herself deeper and deeper. "Why can't you just tell me who he is? If you have nothing to hide then there shouldn't be a problem."

"The fact that you have to ask me that just proves that I'm untrustworthy to you. Would does it matter if I had seen him before or even slept with him? Gabriel I could have slept with half the city for all you know. Like Nathan, all that is in the past and doesn't correlate to who I am now." Her voice softened. "Gabriel, you've given me a baby, that's all that matters right now, don't think on things that get you upset."

"You _did_ sleep with him?!" He knew it, she wanted to sleep around like she used to. She didn't want him so she had to look for someone else. His eyes looked at her with a prudish judgement. "What was I thinking? I thought you loved me but you just wanted a baby to raise and a nice place to do it. I'm just a donor to you." He felt a whiplash of scorn and he rode on it. "I bet you've always wanted children and you slept with others to get it right? Made them feel that they were important, loved, and when you had got what you wanted you ditched them. I'm just the fool that actually believed you. God, I married you, I _married_ you! You probably forced me to do it, I mean there's no way…"

She stood with her mouth open in shook before her face suddenly transformed into a teeth bared snarl. "THAT IS IT! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR CHILDISH WHINGING!" She moved herself into his face, finger jabbing into his chest repeatedly. "How dare you accuse me of forcing you to do anything! What do you think I am?! Do not care for me at all?" He didn't answer, only tried to move away from her poking hand while still keeping his stance. Eden growled at him, hormones driving her in whirlwind directions. "Why do you treat me this way? You pretend like you're one of the meek but when I'm not making _you_ feel better about yourself you put me down and act like I'm some stranger if our home. I'm carrying your child!"

"AND I DON'T WANT IT! I'VE NEVER WANTED IT!" He was boiling with rage and hurt and he didn't care just then what she felt. "You have been a dishonest person from the minute I met you. You were a prostitute for god's sake! That stain won't ever go way no matter if you have a ring on your finger and a legitimate baby." Judgement was written into every line of his face.

She made a sound like a cat that was about to attack, a low rumbling yowl. Gabriel felt himself tense but she just sped past him and out the door, leaving her bag in his hand. She was almost running when she got to the front door. Gabriel followed close on her heels, suddenly all anger gone.

"Oh god I'm sorry. Please, please don't leave me. I don't know what I was saying. Please Eden?"

She stopped and turned to him. She seemed less angry as she walked closer to him but stopped a few feet away. "Listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once. I'm going away for a few days and when I'm away I want you to think. To think about if you want me in your life and everything that having me involves. I want you to think about what is important in your life and whether me and the baby are part of that. I do love you Gabriel, I think from the start but I can't stay with you if you don't feel the same. If you do love me then it's up to you to decide what you do."

"Just come back."

"Tell me you love me."

Gabriel blinked his lashes quickly before staring at her hard. They both waited for him to say the words but he couldn't get them out and lowered his head in shame. Eden walked the rest of the way up to him and took her bag from his loose fingers, lips trembling. He caught her hand and pulled her to him sharply. His hand quickly cupped her face and he pressed his lips to hers hard, forcing his tongue past her mouth. Eden turned her face away and stumbled back.

"That's not going to fix things Gabriel."

"If you don't come back I'll find you Eden." His voice was think and echoing with a growl.

"And what if you can't find me?" She was calm now but her anger had been holding back her distress and she was crying unheeded tears.

"I'll go and fight if you don't come back." His words sounded shaky but his face was set with a pale determination.

She gasped and her tears rolled fat. "You wouldn't? You're exempt from it Gabriel. You have enough money to get yourself out of it if you're called."

He was becoming more bloodless with every minute. "They don't have to know that. They want as many men as possible."

"You can't blackmail me like this, you can't. You don't have to Gabriel because I will come back and stay if you've changed." She stared at him with a sad hope.

His eyes rounded in fear, nostrils flaring. "I won't change, I won't change into that." He took a breath and closed his eyes, counting the ticks in his mind before opening them again. "I don't know how to make things better." His voice was soft and lost.

They stared at each other, at an impasse. Eden straightened herself up and turned, looking back over her shoulder. "I'm going sway to make things better Gabriel. Please be hear when I get back. I love you."

Gabriel watched her walk away, the almost overpowering need to go after her and drag her back, if need be, held at bay by his heart wrenching conviction. She was abandoning him, just as he always feared. He was right.


	22. Chapter 22

_note: this was written before we knew what Angela's ability was, so it's different in this._

* * *

Eden looked over the blockaded sea, the sky blue and stretching into a purple line where it met the sea. The wind smelled like salt and that tinge of freshly caught fish. She was standing outside the Palace, looking at the open entrance. It looked deserted, the garden over grown and some of the windows broken.

She walked into the foyer, seeing bare white walls that should have had painting hanging on them and displaced pieces of furniture. She didn't know what she had expected to find, there were no answers here because there was no one to ask them to. Still, she had travelled here and she wasn't going to leave without looking around. She searched through every room, that childish thrill of snooping where she shouldn't driving her into the next one. She climbed the marble stair case and moved up the three flights. The higher she got the brighter the light from the windows became. It was very early morning and the sun had just risen.

She gets to the top and sees one more door waiting for her. Upon opening it she is hit with an irradiance of light and colour, making her invulnerably step back and shield her eyes. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling and saw that it was made of glass and the light was pouring through it and bouncing off the walls.

"The light helps me paint." The voice was from the end of the room, behind a canvas. Eden can see bare feet sticking out from under it. She walks to it and around with her breath in her throat.

"Isaac? Isaac Mendez?

A pair of white eyes look at her and Eden thinks she can see images flashing in them.

"Yes, that's me. And you're Eden McCain."

"But you're dead. I saw it in the paper. It's how I knew where to come…"

"I might as well be dead to the world so making it official just gives it a nice finality to it." He chuckled and dipped his paint brush into some paint before applying it to the canvas.

"I've been dreaming about you, for months."

"I know and that's not entirely my doing. Like you I've got a keeper." He jerked his head to the side. "Or he's got me…" Eden was surprised to see a man sitting asleep in a chair behind them. "That's Maurice, it's best if we don't wake him…"

Eden nodded and moved around to look at what he was painting. She wasn't surprised when she saw her own face. "You knew I was coming. You can paint the future?"

"Yes." He laughed at her awed expression. "It might sound like a lot of fun but I'll tell you it's so boring when you know what's going to happen." He sighed and finished canvas-Eden's slack jawed expression.

Eden closed her mouth and frowned at him. "Why were you in my dreams. Tell me about the paintings."

He put down his brush and closed his eyes. When he opened them he stumbled slightly but his gaze was now brown. "I'll do better then that, I'll show you."

He walked to an alcove that Eden recognised and pulled back a curtain. There they were, her paintings. Isaac stayed by her shoulder as she moved to the first one. It wasn't the wedding picture as she expected but an image of herself as a child, singing with her mother. Eden felt her eyes prickle and she turned to him. "I thought you only looked into the future?"

"I did at first. But your power grows stronger Eden, changes as you do. Being here has helped it develop into something more."

She moved down to the next one, more scenes of her childhood, adolescence. She got to the fire and kept her eyes away from it, just skimming across blurs of orange. Her whole life, possibly from start to finish was laid out before her.

"Did you paint my death?" Her hands placed themselves against her belly.

His eyes softened. "That's not for you to know. It would just take the light out of your life. I know, believe me." His face looked up at the glass ceiling, sunlight playing over his face. "I think there are a set that you need to see." He walked her further down, past images of her drunk and salacious, past her meeting Charlie and joining with Bennet until finally she came to a set of paintings she didn't know. "What are these? I don't remember this."

"And you wouldn't…"

The first painting was of the village she knew and lived in. But that couldn't be right because the one before it was her in the Carnival. "When I left Bennet's service I went back to New York, I stayed with Niki."

"Look at the others."

Eden moved to the next one with a frown. It was the fair setting up on a field. She could just make out her old cottage in the foreground and the village at the back. "We pitched up there? That's not right…" She moved to the next. It was opening night and the villagers had arrived in their hundreds. Everyone. The next showed herself, standing on stage doing her act. She gasped and leaned closer when she saw two familiar faces sitting in the audience. "Gabriel and Virginia attended?" Her husband's face was riveted to her painted one. She straightened up, spotting the next one. It was the same scene again but this time Gabriel was without his mother. Four more followed.

"He came to watch you every night you were there." Isaac's voice drifted to her from a distance, her senses too intent on the paintings to pay him attention. She stood back and looked at one for a long time before speaking.

"I put him in the show. I made him part of my act." It was something she used to do, pick an audience member and use her power on him or her. She had chosen Gabriel. It was an image with her pressed up to him on her tiptoes, whispering in his ear. She couldn't hear what was being said but she knew what she had forced him to feel and act. "I made him believe I was his love. I had asked some of the villagers before hand what they thought of him; they told me tales of a man who was a recluse and unattached, never drinking and prudishly ignoring a woman's company. I thought he would be perfect." She looked at the next painting and felt a wave of shame and self disgust. "I thought it would make the audience laugh to see him love me, to act in such a different way..."

A picture of herself and him in a clinch and another with the villagers rolling in their seats, red faced, as he got on his knee before her, brown eyes shinning on the canvas. "After it was over, after they had got their fun I knew that it would fade, the love he had for me. I felt so ashamed, he didn't deserve to be treated in that way." She placed her fingers to her mouth. "I remember."

"You've been remembering for awhile know Eden. I know what happened. He was crushed under his own embarrassment and what could have been real. Look." Isaac pointed her to another picture; a picture of Gabriel curled into a miserable ball with a man standing over him, angry and pity mixed into his heavy features.

"Is that Gabriel's father?" The painter nodded at her. "He saw what had been done to his son and he grew apoplectic with anger. He blamed you and everyone in the carnival for making his son sad and even more weak."

"What happened?" Eden could feel her voice trembling. All she knew about his father was that he had died, not too long ago.

"He tried to kill everyone and he would have succeeded if it wasn't for you." The voice was pleasant, motherly even but it made Eden's stomach ice over and then shake. She turned to see Angela Petrelli who smiled at her kindly. "It's good to see you again Eden."

"I, I know you. I remember you watching me do my acts."

"You were fascinating, especially to me. We are more alike then you know Eden." She walked to her side and brushed her fingers down the next painting. It was of Gabriel's father setting fire to the tents. Eden involuntarily stepped away, watching her fingers warily.

"We're alike?"

"In a way." She turned to her, eyes squinted in thought. "I have never meet another person before you that could persuade, not vocally." She brought her hands, wiggling her fingers. "I don't persuade as such, more like sway a persons emotions one way or the other as I wish. That's why I took an interest in your life."

Eden watched her lower her hands, unable to keep her eyes off them. "What happened with the fire?"

"Nothing to serious, not with our Firestarter there. What happened of importance there was Gabriel's mother and you." Eden frowned in confusion but Angela pointed to the next painting and Eden found herself following the movement. People and animals ran wild across the grass, smoke curling around everything. Eden could make out herself pulling the very woman standing with her out of the inferno. Angels smiled "You saved my life and I told you then I wouldn't forget it." Eden's eyes sharpened on the foreground on the painting, seeing two figures that appeared to be struggling.

"That's Virginia and her husband, I think."

"It is. Mrs Gray found out what her husband was going to do and tried to stop him. There was fight and Virginia killed her husband."

Eden felt her body jump in shock at the matter of fact way Angela said it. "She killed him?! But he - she…"

"From what I have seen and heard your husband's father was a deeply religious man, not unlike Isaac here he was beset from childhood with visions, visions he thought came from god. He was a man ruled by his faith and his own zealous beliefs. Before long they grew so numerous that he started to be driven mad by them; so he tried to ignore them."

Eden broke in, a burning question on her lips. "Was he like us? Did he have a power?"

"I think he did yes. And I think he feared that his son would follow in his footsteps. A small life was enough for him and it would be enough for his wife and son. Virginia lived in that small shop in a state of tyranny, no one ever knowing. Miserable life, terrible." Angela stopped speaking as she looked at the figure of Virginia with mellow, sad eyes.

"So she killed him?" Eden had listened with a careful ear but she could feel it jumbled already in her mind.

"She did. All the years worth of being under his thumb and fist just took her over and she lashed out at him. It was for Gabriel's sake, she had told me later, her son was special and her was going to take it away from him."

"For Gabriel? Gabriel doesn't have a power."

Again those coldly humorous eyes locked to hers. "He hasn't displayed anything, that's true. But he might. And more importantly his children will…" Eden looked down at her belly as Angela did. "You're carrying the future Eden."

When she had looked up Angela had walked down to the next set of paintings, Isaac still shadowing them. The older woman turned to him with a smile. "Isaac, tell me this: can someone fall in love with a painting?"

The painter stepped forward, eyes dark as he looked Mrs Petrelli. "Of course, people do it everyday. It's art." He finished simply. His eyes then looked at the next painting and then back to Eden. "Ah yes. Well Eden here is living proof of that…" He chuckled at her mysteriously.

Eden ignored him and moved to look at what they were looking at. As she did she suddenly had the oddest feeling, like she was at once experiencing deja-vu whilst looking into a mirror. It was a paining of herself looking at a painting of herself. On and on. She had to look away, eyes going blurred. "I don't understand."

"What you don't know Eden is that this has happened before. After the death of Gray we, along with the Haitian, wiped their memories and persuaded the villagers that nothing had happened. We like to be noticed to a certain extent, not spread over every newspaper. There are something's that people are just not ready for yet. You had to wipe Gabriel's mind." She pointed to another painting, showing herself cupping Gabriel's humiliated face in her hands. But his eyes were somehow glowing when he looked at her. Trick of the light maybe.

"Why would I make him forget?"

"You felt guilty for what you had done to him. That village isn't big and it's filled with lots of wagging mouths. Rumours and gossip began to fly about the two of you. He was forced into his shop to escape it. His father had just died in mysterious circumstances and his mother was bed written. We made everything better Eden. But it wasn't enough, was it?"

Eden stared at the painting and looked at her own face. "I fell in love with him?"

"You did and you wanted to stay with him. You had taken his memories of you and you told me you could fill them up again."

"I just left the carnival for someone that felt embarrassed to be around me?" Eden looked at the older woman with a scornful doubt. It was Isaac that spoke up.

"This isn't the first time you have seen these paintings Eden. You knew that you would meet him again. You knew that you would get married and get pregnant. And." He paused, looking at Angela in uncertainty who nodded at him. "And you knew he was going to die." He pointed to a painting further along: Gabriel lying dead on the floor of a fiery street.

Eden heard the cry of pain before she felt it, bursting up sharply from inside her and out of her mouth. Her hands gripped her dress into fists tightly. "What do you mean? No that - no oh god, no…" The feeling of despair was rising in her and she could feel her control about to wither away into hysterics.

"Ssshh, that's it Sarah, calm down. Shhh" Fingertips were brushing down her arms and she felt herself breathing more easy, her fear still present but numbed. Angela kept her hand on her arm.

"That won't happen Eden if you just go back! He won't sign up and he won't die." Isaac's voice was soft and tender.

"That was what set your feet planted in his place Eden. You grew to love him because you _knew_ it was going to happen. He would die otherwise."

Eden drew in a shaky breath. "That's why I felt I knew him, I knew deep down it was predestined." She felt her heart shrink. "I had no control over what could have happened, my whole life has been planned?"

Angela sniffed in scorn. "No one forced you to follow this path Eden, you choose to do that yourself. You brought up this argument before, ' none of it will be real if it's not a fresh start, if I know,' you said your goodbyes to the carnival members and you let the Haitian take your memories of the proceeding events. We left you in the cottage, paying for your expenses and left you to live as you wanted."

Eden looked at a painting of her cottage, light glowing warmly from the windows. It was the night she had moved in. She heard the explanation and it made sense to her but something was nagging at her. She turned to them with a frown. "Bennet told me that I was indispensable to the Carnival Company. If that's true why would you let me go?"

Angels sighed and pulled out a pair of fingerless lace gloves from her bag and began to put them on. "I told you before that I always pay back those that do me a service." She looked up at her seriously. "You saved my life and this was the reward." Her eyes looked down at her belly. "There are things that will happen when we are all dead and gone Eden, things that you may think don't concern us and to an extent they don't. They concern our children and their children's children." She smiled at her encouragingly. "Breeding Eden, we are a new breed and we have to look to the future. Gabriel could die, it's true and normally that wouldn't matter in the great scheme of things but what he can create, with you, does."

"You're the matchmaker?" Eden looked at Isaac as he shuffled sheepishly. Angela's eyes flicked to him.

"Humf. Childish phrase but I suppose it applies to what I generally do." She clipped her bag shut and turned to leave "You had better leave now if you want to save your marriage. Isaac says that Gabriel has this very morning gone to draft his name, in New York City, at the Marshal's Office. You better leave now if you want to catch him."

But Eden was already out of the door and down the stairs, Angela's unconcerned voice lingering behind her.

"Think of the children Eden. Hurry."


	23. Chapter 23

He stood in line, everyone about him silent and intent with inner thoughts. Some looked ahead of them with glazed expressions, some with prideful vigour. Most stood nervously, not just at what lay ahead of them but behind. There had been whispers about a demonstration, a group of protestors. It was just reaching ten 0'clock and the street outside was without commotion.

Gabriel hardly took any of it in, only one thing on his mind: Eden. He had sat in isolation when she had left, not allowing his mother to bother him, and was beset with a never-ending tirade of thought. She wasn't coming back, she wasn't coming back and he had nothing left. It wasn't his fault, she had left him like he knew she would and now there was no one. He had lost the thing that thought he was important to them only to be proved wrong. He could fight and he could die saving someone's life. His name would be engraved on to memorials the country over for the rest of natural time.

His mind flashed up images of her beautiful face and he tried not to brake down again.

"Hmm, you don't have the hands of a fighter my boy." The voice was masculine, British. Gabriel turned to see a white haired, wealthy dressed man, a little round around the middle. His eyes twinkled kindly.

"I fix timepieces." It was an over worn response that had been ingrained in him over time. He held out his hands and when the man took them he knew he should have moved away, like he normally would have done, but he didn't have the will.

"An artisan, yes I can see it." He let go of Gabriel's hands and looked into his face. Intelligent eyes peered keenly before looking away to stare around them. "You know I come to these drafts whenever they are held, I can't seem to help myself. I like to watch you see. Watch the men that turn up, the ones that decide that they want to take the risk. And do you know what I see?"

Gabriel shook his head, not really hearing what was being said but thankful for the man's distracting speech.

"I see ranks, levels and hierarchies of loss, and more; the acceptability of those losses. You see Gabriel there are some that have been put on a leash and pulled by death since birth, ones that will follow a set path and die when it is their time to. And then there people like you." Blue eyes forced themselves against Gabriel's and he couldn't blink. "Who are not amongst the ranks of the acceptably lost, you serve a higher purpose and that is more important then dieing in some godforsaken field, bleeding the last of your life away. Your life has meaning and it would be a waste to throw it away."

Gabriel felt his heart, which had been oddly calm while the man spoke, suddenly start to thunder in his breast. He felt like the air had been sucked away from him. "You- you think that about me?" His voice shook with emotion.

"I do Gabriel." The man said firmly. "Tell me, why did you come here today?"

Gabriel felt that swell of pride get hit on and compressed with her face again. "Eden - my wife. She left me." He said it quickly but his voice caught on a treacherous gasp at the end. "She abandoned me and I - I didn't know what to do with myself."

The man looked at him with sympathy. "Hmmm, many a man has died for love…" Gabriel blinked at him in puzzlement. The gentleman smiled up at him benevolently.

"She's having my baby."

The bearded man's face lit up and clapped Gabriel on the shoulder. "That is wonderful! We would just wither away into nothing without children. Shakespeare had it right, everyone should have children and guarantee a continuance of a part of themselves after they are gone. Beauty should not be left to wither away. They keep you young at heart and give your life purpose. Or at least mine do." He said roguishly.

"You have children?"

"Oh I have many, _many_ children Gabriel. I'm a family man first and foremost. Seed and reap Gabriel, _seed and reap_."

"When you had your first child were you scared?" He didn't know why he was saying this to a stranger but Gabriel felt that he could trust him.

"Having the jitters hmm? I'll tell you the truth: the second, third and fourth birth are just as nerve wrecking as the first! You just do the best you can." He took out his pocket watch and clicked it open and looked down at the miniscule painting in it with an affectionate sigh. "I've been married to my wife for such a long time now that I can't remember any other way of living. She's my reason." He put it away into his waistcoat and looked up at Gabriel with a more serious expression. "Don't give up what you have Gabriel, you'll end up hating yourself even more."

Gabriel stared t him unblinking for a full minute before he looked away. He stared at the draft box and nodded his head. "I know, that's why I wanted to go."

The elderly man put his top hat on of his head with a neat pat and prepared to leave. "Well it seems I must go, places to be and all that. Here." He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Gabriel. "When your baby is born look over this card again. Don't be a stranger Mr Gray." He smiled politely and turned to leave.

Gabriel looked down at the card then up again quickly. "How did you know my name?"

The man turned in the doorway, his figure obscured by the sunlight and words almost drowned out by the noise from the street. "It's written on your draft paper. Good day." With a tip of his hat he was gone, closing the door behind him on the light and noise. Gabriel turned to face the front of the line, looking down at the name printed on the card: Daniel Linderman, CEO. He looked back up with a smile. He was almost there.

As the grandfather clock chimed ten the first paving slab came crashing through the window and the sounds of angry chanting filled the now chaotic room.

*

Eden had travelled non stop since she had left the house by the seafront. But the more she urged the driver, horse, wheels to go faster, using her ability at the top of her lungs she couldn't get there quick enough. When she finally reached the city and finally the street the sun was almost setting. The mob had already set fire to the Marshal's Office and were in a full riotous frenzy, fighting the armed forces. The sounds of gunshots could be heard banging overhead. And Gabriel was in there somewhere.

Her Voice rang out into the midst of the people nearest to her. She passed through the parting crowd before her like a hot knife through butter, moving in closer to the burning building. She screamed out Gabriel's name, screeched it till she felt as if her throat was grating and stretching with pain, till she could barely breath. She started to cough as the smoke billowing off the building reached her and she was enveloped from the heat coming off the flames.

She moved back and into the centre of a raging fight. Men were screaming, irises ringed with white as their eyes bugged out of their heads as the pushed each other, working themselves up into a frenzy until the first punch was thrown. Eden stumbled into the midst of them.

"stop… st- stop." Her voice was reedy and thin, without power. She was pushed from behind with a gruff order to get out of the way and she found herself sprawled on the sidewalk, behind a cattle trough. The men started to punch each other, falling to the ground and getting back up to have another go. Suddenly a man was shot in the chest by someone and he fell to the ground with a spray of blood. The ring of men stood frozen in surprise. And then a low rumbling mad shout echoed over her, growing in intensity. And then a brick was picked up.

She didn't know what made her do it, she was without her voice, pregnant and totally unprotected. Eden bulldozed her elbow into the side of the man who was about to aim for another and he stumbled to the side with a cry of pain. When he righted himself up he swung around and bashed the side of her head with the brick, just once. Eden saw a spasm of surprise on the man's face as a blinding flash of white and pain overtook her mind. She fell to the floor without a sound.

*

Gabriel had become stuck. After the rioters had attacked the men trapped in the Office had quickly rushed for the back exists. But they didn't get far; the Union needed them to fight, there wasn't enough police in the city. Gabriel was given a gun but he gave it back straight away: he didn't know the first thing about them. Instead he was to "watch his man's back who had the gun." That sounded to much like a shield to Gabriel but he did as he was told, just happy to be following someone who seemed to be a source of order in all the mayhem.

He was at street level, with a man he didn't even know. The man he was supposed to protect was shot in front of him and Gabriel was left on his own as the day descended into madness, more buildings being set alight. He didn't care about civic duty or serving his country, he just wanted to get out of there alive and get back to his wife. He found an alley that offered shelter and decided to wait it out until the way would be clear enough to pass through.

He saw her as the sunset. Just a flicker through the smoke and milling crowd. He felt his heart jump into his mouth at the sight of her, she was calling his name, she had come to find him. Then he was running out into it, not even thinking about the bullets and the men with wooden batons. He had never been so scared in his life as he tried to get to her all the anger and mistrust just became obliterated with the need to cover her away from all this. All that mattered was Eden. Everything that mattered was her.

He was just yards away when the man hit her head and she fell to the ground. Gabriel had skidded to a holt, his mind going completely blank as he looked at her lying there. Blood was beginning to pool next to her head, seeping out to touch the foot of the man with the brick. Gabriel was suddenly immersed in a red fire, every cell and blood vassal, every inch of his skin became inflamed. Something hot and colossal reared up in him and he was taken over by it. Gabriel saw red.

The man didn't even see him coming. He was thrown to the ground and his head was taken in a crushing grip. It was lifted up then cracked back down on to the sidewalk below with a powerful force. Gabriel repeatedly bashed the man's head against the ground until his hands were too slick with blood to hold on to it any longer. Gabriel settled back on his hunches, breath whooshing in and out of his mouth as that red mist started to fade. As it did he saw Eden.

"No. Nonononnonoo!"

A low, slow building whine began to fill the air as Gabriel looked at her paling face. He scrabbled over to her on his hands and knees and reached out to touch her leg. He blinked at his red hands and rubbed them over his shirt before touching her. "Eden?" He sounded odd to his ears, wobbly. She remained still, a mock, sick attempt at sleep. He felt something in him die as he touched her cold fingers lying curled on the ground, the others over her belly. He was then pressing his face against hers and kissing her all over, frantic and needy.

"I love you. I love you, loveyouloveyouloveyouloveyou." His voice was gravely and lowering and rising in octave. He bent over her, waiting for her eyes to open. "Wake up, oh god, oh god please, I'll do anything, anything you want…" They remained closed, the whites of them showing below her lashes. He could see her blood, red and thick, next to him.

"Edie?" A chest heaving sob was released from him and he suddenly picked her up in his arms and pulled her against his chest, pressing his face against her neck. He rocked back and forth with her lifeless body in his arms as he screamed in pain over and over again.


	24. Chapter 24

He said it came with a price, everything did.

For years Gabriel would let those words echo through his mind, the reasonability and rightness of them sounding as persuasive now as they did seven years ago.

_All men have to make a great choice at some point in their lives. This is yours Mr Gray._

Gabriel lay the flowers down gently on the grass and stepped back with his head down against the sun and wind. He had made his choice and he only regretted it sometimes. He looked across to his son running around the field and felt at once satisfied and quality at the deceitfulness of it. One half of his life was beset with falsehoods.

He had been out of his mind after Eden was knocked down, so much so that he had to be someone else. Gabriel couldn't handle seeing his wife's face growing blue and he couldn't handle his overwhelming need to just lash out at anything that came near her.

They said they had tranquilise him because he wouldn't let the doctors near her without attacking them. When he awoke he knew he couldn't cope so decided that he had to be someone that could. He sat up from the bed calmly and asked where his wife was. They took him sadly to see where she was lying and that cold, watchful dragon that had coiled it's self in him started to warm up. He had fallen to his knees next to her bed and gently pinched the end of her sleeve between his fingers and held on. She wasn't gone from him yet.

The doctors said that she had gone into a coma and the outcome, what with her present condition, didn't look good. He was told to prepare for the worst. Gabriel remained a point of constant stability next to Eden while everyone, the nurses and doctors and his mother, flittered around the outside. He was watching everything through a still water but inside he was pushed small and intensely hot with fear.

Somehow, through the next five months Eden survived long enough for their son to be delivered through caesarean. He couldn't bring himself to look at the baby; the doctors had informed him, again, with solemn faces that she was going to die. Giving birth in such a way was usually fatal and even more so when she was so weak to begin with. And he knew, could feel it, that she wasn't going to pull through this. He did everything he could think of, demanded the professionals around him to give him every scrap of knowledge they possessed about her condition and read extensively the medical journals he could get his hands on. But it did nothing, she was still fading away day by day.

And then on a day when he felt himself begin to rise to the surface, when the pain just pushed him back up, he found the card and remembered the man from the office. He had written to him and was seen shockingly fast. The old man had come to see him personally. He had shook his hand like they were fast friends and immediately began to coo over the baby.

"He's magnificent I hope you know!" It was just him, Eden and this strange man in the room, his mother making arrangements for him at the funeral home. Mr Linderman picked his son up in experienced hands and held him while he lay a proposition down for Gabriel.

"I imagine you've done everything that you can think of yes? Gone to see every physician and read everything till all you can see is garbled Latin?"

Gabriel nodded, head heavy. "I didn't know what else to do." He was seated next to Eden as she was lying there, looking to all the world asleep. "She won't wake up. She's going to sleep herself to death." He looked up at Mr Linderman with world weary eyes. "Can you help me?"

The man looked like someone's kind grandfather but at that moment a gleam entered his bright blue eyes. "Oh Mr Gray, I can do more then help. I can set your life back to they way it was - no - I can make it better!"

"How?"

"By agreeing to a deal Mr Gray." He swayed the new born in his arms and hummed under his breath. Gabriel frowned up at him.

"A deal? I don't have anything to offer you." He looked defeated already, the hope that the man could work a miracle already fading. Linderman put the baby back down into his cot and turned to Gabriel with his arms crossed loosely over his chest.

"But you do Gabriel, you do." He stared him straight in the eye "Tell me Gabriel, do you love your wife?"

"More then anything. I don't know what will happen if she's gone from me." He looked at him with a flash of deep fear he couldn't suppress. "I don't know what will happen _to_ me."

"And would you be willing to offer anything to have her back?"

"Yes." He punctured the word into the air.

"Well then I'd like you to consider my offer." He had then explained to Gabriel in his friendly, sincere way what he wanted from him and what Gabriel would be given in return. Gabriel had risen and disagreed vehemently, voice low and hissing. But even as the words left him he was considering it.

"I can't do that to her, she'll _hate_ me."

"That won't ever be a possibility Mr Gray because she will be dead. Your wife is going to die, I can feel it, life dripping out of her at this very moment." He moved closer to him, gaze soft. "Gabriel you will have many, many children. Babies, unfortunately, die far to frequently; it's tragic but it happens everyday. I'm offering you the life of your wife, your Eden. What is more important to you?"

Gabriel looked across to his son sleeping peacefully in his cot and then down to Eden, skin chalk white and clammy, eyelids purple. He sank back down into his chair and he looked back up at Linderman "But he's my baby." His voice was tiny and without power.

"Your child is destined for great things Mr Gray. Would you take that opportunity of something worthwhile happening to something that carries part of _you_ in them?" Gabriel didn't answer, just stared at the man with hard, attentive eyes. "The boy could grow up more wealthy then you did, it's true. But he would still be the son of a watchmaker, would still be smothered in the life that you can provide. The shop is such a small place for one so great. Because he will be one of the greats Gabriel. Can you deny him a better life?"

Gabriel was unable to look at the man any longer and turned his face down to stare at Eden. She was breathing slowly, painfully slowly. Every time she would exhale he would hold his own breath, praying with every beat of his heart for her to suck up another. Inhale. He took her cold hand and brushed along her fingers. "I thought you would help me but you've only come here to blackmail me." He heard Linderman breathe out a sigh and the shuffle of his shoes on the floor as he pulled up a chair next to him. He leaned to speak over his shoulder.

"It's a matter of choice Mr Gray. Are you willing to see the woman you love die and be left with the thing that caused all this grief in the first place? Living with it and knowing that it's the reason she is no longer with you or do you hand him over and have your wife back to you, safe and healthy? Is there really any competition?"

"It's -it's true that I never wanted him, I just wanted her to myself. But that's changed now that I've seen him, held him. I love him." Gabriel felt the words were true inside but the sounded so flimsy out.

"More then your wife? Are you willing to sacrifice her life for that love you say you have?"

Gabriel sat silent for a very long time until all he was aware of was the feel of her fingers and the obscured sight of her sick face.

"She'll die Gabriel." The voice was sad and Gabriel thought on the point of tears. It took him a moment to realise it was his own. He breathed in heavily and looked up at Linderman. "You can give her back? You promise?"

"I can do it this very minute Mr Gray."

"And the baby -"

"Will be taken care of. He'll have a princes existence."

Gabriel squeezed her hand "She'll never rest knowing that her son is out there without her. She'll never stop looking for him."

"Would you inflict that pain on her?" Gabriel head shot up, startled. "Still birth is as common as getting a cold Gabriel. It's heart wrenching but at least you know that there is nothing more you can do, nothing more to fret over. She will be healthy and bare many more children."

Gabriel stood up on shaky legs and looked at his sons cot. He couldn't go any further, he had to pretend that it was all true now, otherwise he would break. He could put that mask on. He has to.

"I need my wife back. Her more then anything…"

*

"…Gabe?" Her fingers trailed down his sleeve and tugged him around.

"Edie." She smiled gently up at him, sadness still gleaming softly in her eyes. He leaned down and kissed her with a hot intensity. He felt her melt instantly, melding into him arms with a comfortable familiarity. He pressed the side of his face into her hair and breathed deeply.

Eden laughed. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I love you Edie, don't ever forget it. More then anything…" He pulled back to look into her face.

She gave him a softly sardonic look. "Like you ever let me forget." The look faded and she trailed her fingers down his cheek. "I love you, to much I think." He sighed at her and she smiled before turning her head to look around him. She waved her arm energetically. "Come on! Time to go home!"

The sounds of their children whining to stay longer followed behind them as they walked back to their home, a large cottage on the edge of a village.


End file.
